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
“Satsvarupa Maharaja was in the hospital for about 3 days with double pneumonia. He was discharged and the pneumonia was cleared. He is back now but feeling very weak. Report to be continued next week”
Hari Hari,
Baladeva
Japa is one of those things I do; it’s part of my sadhana.
What is blocking me? Did I commit a serious offense to a Vaisnava? Did I split an ant with a straw? Am I suffering some past-life karma, or is it something in this life I have forgotten or that I refuse to face? We say atonement is unnecessary, but where does that leave me?
There is a stone in the throat of my desire to love Krsna by serving His holy names. Brothers and sisters, please pray for me to unlock this mystery. I want to be free.
******
Do you doubt that anyone chants nicely? Do you look to see if they get ecstatic bodily transformations? No, no, I can’t know what they do or feel. That’s not my business. Bowing at the base of Tulasi’s table, I pray to remember Nama Prabhu and to ask, “Please allow me to chant sincerely, as service. Tell me what I can do to improve and give me the strength to do it.”
******
Prabhupada says that tears are a way of expressing the consummation of Krsna consciousness. In another place he says tears are the price we pay for love of God, meaning that we should cry to attain the perfectional stage. One of the primary ways to practice bhajana is to chant the Hare Krsna mantra. As with other practices, there should be special emphasis on practicing it with heart, not just mechanically. We are supposed to hanker to live in Vrndavana, and we are supposed to feel real separation from Vrndavana and the Vrajavasis.
But before we can feel these things, we have to pray for the mercy of the holy name and cry in the mood of Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s “Gopinatha” about our unworthiness and sinfulness. This is relevant because it deals with just where we are now—stuck in mechanical chanting. We don’t know how to feel deeply when we chant the holy name. Of course, crying and spiritual emotion cannot be imitated; spiritual emotion is given to us by Krsna’s grace.
******
I realize that it is one thing to study Prabhupada’s books and try to assimilate them, and another thing to get below the surface, below the intellectualized, verbalized discussion and emerge as a new person with deeper convictions in Krsna consciousness. We are looking for a very definite focus. It means we have to break through our mechanical attitudes and attachments. It means we have to specifically be trying to make advancement.
Krsna consciousness can be grasped intellectually without fully surrendering. I expressed this to one of my Godbrothers in Vrndavana one day. We are not just trying to become “hip” to the scriptures without giving our hearts to following them. Surrender means a change of heart. In the material world, just being “in the know” constitutes realization, but devotees want to go beyond the intellectual into the soul.
When I last wrote at this desk, the fir trees looked chilled in the early morning cold. Now the sunshine pours in. Can I drag myself back to the disciplines—to the studies I want to pursue?
******
Learn what it means to live within. Did you ever do it before, maybe as a child? Children have their own worlds. Those worlds are real and children sustain them, but they are internal. Now my own inner world revolves in thoughts of Krsna, of Vrndavana, of chanting and praying.
******
I have heard of people entering a cave that opened into a world of lakes and skies and trees. They had to enter deep within the cave to find the interior world. They had to crawl through the dark crevices and hear the bats screech overhead before they found their paradise. I am entering the cave of my mind. I sing bhajanas to ward off the bats and I hear and remember pastimes to get past the obstacles of my mind. I write my way in. The obstacles try to convince me that the “real” world lies in a realm of the senses. “Step aside,” I tell them. “My guru wants me to hear the Hare Krishna mantra and the sounds of Krsna’s eternal realm.”
******
Srila Prabhupada writes we should long for the day when tears will come to our eyes by chanting Hare Krsna. Imagine trying to squeeze out a few tears—ridiculous. And yet the dry, macho resistance to this is also ridiculous. I don’t think of my desire to cry as a hankering for an advanced stage; more, it is an awareness that I am stuck at a very preliminary point—an inability to feel regret. Sometimes I don’t feel anything.
******
Shall I appease myself and say, “This is a nice stage of advancement. This is a time for patience and don’t you know, patience is a virtue too?” You think, “Krsna doesn’t give me a chance to feel anything in His holy names. One day, He may choose to reveal to me the reasons why the nectar of the Name isn’t mine. He is in the heart and from Him comes remembrance and forgetfulness. Until He does this, I will go on faithfully counting rounds.”
******
The Vaisnava kavi prays that he could not attain the nectar of the holy names. He thinks he must be cursed by Yamaraja. What is the sense of living? Bhaktivinoda Thakura states,
“With every rising and setting of the sun, a day passes and is lost. Then, why do you remain idle and not serve the Lord of the heart? This temporary life is full of various miseries. Take shelter of the holy name as your only business. …. Drink the pure nectar of the holy name. There is nothing but the name to be had in the fourteen worlds. It has filled the soul of Sri Bhaktivinoda Thakura” (Arunodaya-kirtana, verses 5-6, 8).
From Remembering Srila Prabhupada: A Free-Verse Rendition of the Life and Teachings of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krsna Consciousness
pp 213-16
LESSONS IN BOSTON
JULY 1971
When I paid in advance for the top floor suite,
she gave me a long-stemmed rose and asked,
“Why do you spend so much for your guru?”
It is our small expression of love,
I explained. He is a pure devotee of God,
and all should treat him with honor.
But Prabhupada would not accept it;
the hotel is like a brothel, he said,
and the temple is Vaikuntha.
Another visit to Boston
was not important
compared to his world-wide preaching,
but we had been begging him for a year
to please bring Radha and Krsna
and initiate some followers.
But he was disappointed
to find a broken window pane
and on the front lawn yellow grass.
I had excuses why the overflowing paint can
he saw from his room was not a waste
but was due to the rain.
“Never mind,” he said,
“We obtain everything at great labor.
So do not waste Krishna’s energy.”
“According to Jiva Goswami,” he said
before a roomful of Indians,
“this boy is fit to perform the agnihotra,
because he is chanting Hare Krishna.”
I sat beside him,
as he guided me
in arranging ghee, yogurt, and milk,
and allowed me to pour the liquids
on the heads of Radha and Gopiballabha,
the golden forms standing before us.
His annihilating glance
when I omitted a mantra during the yajna—
“What have you done?”
I thought it wasn’t so bad
and had no answer why.
“Why have you done this?” he insisted,
and from his piercing, hurt glance, I read,
“Don’t you know the Parampara
is the most sacred trust
and cannot be whimsically changed?
How can I let you carry the charge,
if this is what you do?”
While still in his view,
I stumbled to rectify
and prayed to keep the lesson.
At his order, I carried Their heavy Lordships,
dressed in Their new, greenish clothes.
I placed Him, light-footed, on the altar,
with young Radha standing by His side.
“What are they saying about Them?” Prabhupada asked.
“We are all very happy,” I replied.
“Travel with Prabhupada as much as you can,” my wife advised. “See everything he does—how he moves,
because a pure devotee is very rare, and when will you again get such a chance?” But with forty Boston devotees I saw him off, and danced before him at the airport,
chanting Hare Krishna for his smiling pleasure.
Farewell, again, Srila Prabhupada.
But we will soon catch up
and see you in another place,
if only from a distance,
to behold your regal New York pastimes.
Your younger disciples need our care
and the temple needs repair,
so we shall follow you shortly.
We cannot thank you enough
for stopping to bring us Radha and Krishna
and teaching us how to cherish
our humble temple as Vaikuntha.
Please forgive us
for offering you such a bare room
and such an unprepared, meager heart,
and forgive us for these unmeasured, flowery words.
All we have is your service.
We beg that you keep us as atoms
at your lotus feet
and let us work, despite our reluctance.
pp 48-50
In general, Srila Prabhupada’s comments on women raise sensitive issues. One such comment that is well known to readers of the Bhagavad-gita appears in the purport to verse 1.40:
“According to Canakya Pandita, women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy.”
Later in the Bhagavad-gita, it is stated, “mam hi partha vyapasritya”—women, sudras and vaisyas are of lower birth, and again, “stri sudra dvijabandhunam”—“these classes are all lesser classes.” According to Srimad-Bhagavatam, women do not have the discriminatory power of a man and therefore they should be “protected and honored but never independent.”
Yet Prabhupada also taught that woman’s greatness was in following the Vedic model. Queen Kunti is called sati (chaste), and Gandhari is described as “a powerful ascetic, although she was living the life of a faithful wife and kind mother.” Prabhupada balances the description of them as less able to discriminate by pointing out their natural qualifications of simplicity and faithfulness:
Women in general are unable to speculate like philosophers, but they are blessed by the Lord because they believe at once in the superiority and almightiness of the Lord, and thus they offer their obeisances without reservation.
There is also some evidence that Prabhupada himself adjusted the Vedic model to accommodate the Westerners. For example, he adjusted the very strict injunction that disallows mixing between men and women, by allowing men and women to associate within the context of service. Moreover, he allowed unmarried women to live in separate quarters in the temples and gave them brahmana initiation, something traditionally offered only to men.
Prabhupada showed balance in his letters to his neophyte disciples. In one letter he said that “Girls should not be taken as inferior… That should not be aggravated, that ‘woman is inferior….’” Prabhupada welcomed both men and women into his preaching mission.
Once in Chicago, Prabhupada told a woman reporter that a woman’s varna is determined by the status of her husband. Chicago’s radio and TV stations and the AP and UPI ran sensational stories on how in Vedic society a woman has no status separate from a man. To the devotees Prabhupada then spoke of a woman’s dependence on her father, husband and sons, and discussed how a woman could become materially liberated. When an all-female news crew arrived for a second interview, Prabhupada did not back down from his stand; he said that the divorce rate was so high because women did not agree to be subordinate to men. He gave the example of how a woman is very vulnerable, since she is the one who becomes pregnant and must bear the child. In a normal marital relationship, the husband than takes on the burden of financially supporting his wife and child; but when there is divorce, the woman must either beg from the government or give her child to someone else to raise. The ultimate result of a woman’s independence is contraception and abortion, both of which are sinful.
Later, in Philadelphia, Prabhupada described the women’s liberation movement as a form of cheating created by men to have easy sex with women:
But you women, you cannot see that this so-called equal rights means cheating the women. Now I say more clearly that a woman becomes pregnant, and the man goes away. The simple woman has to take charge of the child and beg for government alms, ‘Please give me money.’ This is your independence… Or she tries to kill the child. Do you think it is very good independence?
An example of waffling on the women’s’ issue would be to say that Prabhupada presented a social position for women that applies mainly to Indian women. It does not take into account the fact that Western women have more access to higher education as well as other social advantages; because of their greater sophistication, Western women cannot be subjected to the strict Vedic model, and this is why Prabhupada made the concessions he did in dealing with his Western disciples.
On the other hand, a fanatical follower would insist that the Vedic model be followed, regardless of the time, place or person. When preaching on the issue, he would use words like “prostitute” for women without husbands and claim that the only chaste behavior for a woman is to be seen but not heard.
But if we examine Srila Prabhupada’s statements, we can see that he very much understood and accommodated the mentality of Western women and men. He did not change the philosophy for them, but he gave them both time and reason to at least begin moving in the Vedic direction.
Should such controversy be preached at all? I once asked Srila Prabhupada about this, “If the people like the woman reporter become angry by hearing such statements, is it good propaganda for us?” Prabhupada said that for those who are not inclined to hear from Bhagavad-gita, we should just chant Hare Krsna. “If you have to push on the Krsna consciousness movement, then you have to discuss. But if they do not like, better to chant Hare Krsna. Don’t discuss anything….”
pp. 63-66
Let’s be earnest. If a bug crawls up on my bare leg I’m not going to tolerate it. I’ll flick it off. Same goes for horse flies or too much heat and so on. But I will be directly Krsna conscious as soon as possible.
If you’re not in Srila Prabhupada’s personal party, even vicariously, then how will you speak Krsna consciously? The first symptoms of a man, Srila Prabhupada writes in Bhagavad-gita purport 2.54, is how he speaks. A well-dressed fool remains hidden until he begins to talk. I lectured on those verses on the ISKCON farm in Poland, Bhagavad-gita 2.54-2.56, the symptoms of one fixed in Krsna conscious samadhi (sthita-dhi-muni). He is not depressed by unhappiness or elated by happiness. Srila Prabhupada gave the example that if I receive an MA degree, I may be applauded at the convocation ceremony. But what is this honor? The degree is awarded to the body which will cease to exist. If I get some palatable food I think, “How happy I am!,” but it’s the tongue which is enjoying; I am not my tongue. A few days after lecturing on those verses I went to the temple in Prague and there they were up to the Fourteenth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gita. There’s a verse similar to 2.54 where Arjuna again asks for the symptoms of the person who has transcended the modes of nature. We want practical proofs. A devotee’s behavior sets the standard for dharma.
Practice tolerance. Stick to your principles. Don’t run and retreat just because some small red ants are roaming around on the flagstones. You represent to them a huge moving tower, and an unfathomable giant. I am so big the ants don’t even know it, they are so limited. And there are giants and towers that hover over me and take no account of me. Or they see me and I am fully under their control, but I can’t even see it. Demigods are like that.
I have been three days in South France and have to leave in three. I’ve been fifty-four and a half years in this body and have to leave in ? . This story has stretched out to two pages, and when I want I can fold it up. Just say the bugs became intolerable and I began scratching but didn’t want to draw blood so I decided to stop and go inside. Make some excuse or explanation.
I tend to forget purports as soon as I read them. When I lecture I place those sticky Post-Its in a page with notes to remind me what to say. That way I give an organized lecture, to the point. Srila Prabhupada didn’t have to do that and yet he always went to the heart of the subject matter. He spoke in a scholarly way, analyzing Sanskrit words in the sloka and quoting relevant slokas from other scriptures. But he was never pedantic. Not confined. Said what occurred to him and what Lord Krsna wanted him to say. He spoke from the strong, unassailable position of a pure surrendered soul. He was most qualified to speak of Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam.
I came here to do a story with a Krsna conscious meaning. So this is it. You can be with Srila Prabhupada in Hari-sauri’s Diary and ride the airplane with him, be alone in his room with his servant and not even be noticed, observe crossfire of his chastisement without being caught in it—but be careful. Your conscience will speak to you. You have to ask yourself, “What am I doing to serve him as the others are doing?” You can’t just hide anonymously in a crowd of five hundred during his Mayapur lecture.
As I write, a red spider dangles in mid-air beside me. lie is riding his amazing invisible cable that extends toward my leg—and suddenly he lands on my leg—and I dismiss him abruptly. I know I’ve got work to do, and so do you, dear reader. First, you have to fix up a prabhu-datta-desa or a vocation of service in ISKCON. You need to follow strict sadhana. Keep reviewing how you are doing. You can’t be too hard on yourself these days, but neither too easygoing. My story would like to help you. Sit a while in the shade while the locusts chime and scrape unearthly yet very earthly sounds. It’s a brief respite. I offer it to you. What do you think? I mean about yourself, what are you doing in Krsna consciousness? As for me, I’m going to go inside now where it’s cool. I’ll read some more Srimad-Bhagavatam or Transcendental Diary and think over what we have said (pray Krsna will teach us to improve and make best use of human life).
pp. 252-54
When a few days pass and I don’t record events, it makes me think that life is not worth recording. I blame the medicine for reducing my consciousness, or I blame the medical regimen which confines me to the house. Or I blame myself for not transcending my limits. Prabhupada once said in a letter that his composing of the Bhagavatam was like anything else in that it had a rhythm—sometimes the translating would proceed in a very intense way, and sometimes it would be relaxed. I feel a real sense of accomplishment when within a day I can compose a poem or record events in a meaningful, Krsna conscious way.
Prabhodananda Sarasvati wrote that a devotee sees the whole world as Vaikuntha: visvam purna-sukhayate. “The whole world is full of happiness,” he says. From that viewpoint, it is natural that a devotee wants to sing praises of Vaikuntha and the Lord of Vaikuntha.
The first week of this two-week Ayur Vedic intensive treatment passed more quickly for me because I found it worth recording. Now time seems to be dragging. I think more about my illness, and I don’t record. But when one is inspired, even suffering seems to be an advantage. Srila Prabhupada joked ironically about his own illnesses and pointed out the advantage of being able to compose Srimad-Bhagavatam during the times he could not sleep or even eat. For us disciples this was painful to hear, and yet we could also share with him the joy of his continued work, his eternal victory.
The quality of my hearing is similarly diminished. Sometimes days go by and I am not able to hear Prabhupada’s lectures or read his books. Maybe I will feel more appreciation when I finally return, but I wish I was never away.
This morning I dreamed that I was preaching in a Muslim country. I spoke in the shrine of some hero and was able to answer all challenges. Some people there tried to exert mystic influences over me, but I began to remember Prabhupada’s lectures verbatim and spoke exactly the way Prabhupada did. Krsna’s potency defeated the mystic influences, and all the people were converted. Even the pictures in their shrine then bowed down to Krsna, convincing all the people. After this, on the way to the airport, all my luggage was lost. Then Baladeva was hit by a car, but he was not seriously injured. I woke thinking that there are great challenges and victories ahead if I can recover and go out again, but only if I carefully follow Prabhupada’s words.
I have many countries to travel to, many persons to meet, and many lectures to deliver on behalf of Srila Prabhupada. But today my goal is to rise from bed within the next few hours and take lunch. It will not be easy, but I am inching my way toward that goal. And if I make it, then in the afternoon the next goal is to take medicine. To chant the required sixteen rounds also remains a big hill ahead in this day. Struggling to achieve the present goals, I think of travels and preaching confrontations as dreams. For the present, they are as unattainable as my conquest of the Muslims during this morning’s slumber. For now, Prabhupada’s lecture is a strain to follow, and the turn-off button on the tape recorder makes too loud a click. Discretion is the better part of valor.
pp. 65-67
Today’s letter on your desk is from 1970 to Advaita dasa, the ISKCON Press manager. Advaita had left the association of devotees and Prabhupada was relieved to hear that he was back. Srila Prabhupada writes, “I know that Satsvarupa has got too much other engagement to be able to devote the requisite time for managing the press department.” At least Prabhupada mentions me as busy in his service. Srila Prabhupada told Advaita he didn’t have to attend the gratis. In other words, he didn’t have to be under my complete authority as temple president. Maybe I overdid it. Those were rough days. Advaita loved to work printing Srila Prabhupada’s books, but he had little taste for anything else in Krsna consciousness.
Those days are gone now. The worries are gone too, faded into ISKCON’s history. Some of your instructions and estimations seem different to us now twenty years later. You encouraged Advaita and said that you were confident he would not get ensnared by maya, but he did get ensnared. Somehow, working on your books wasn’t enough. You told him later in New York that he had to attend the mangala-arati or else the Press could be closed.
Self-aggrandizement isn’t for a Vaisnava. I don’t claim I was a wonderful and faithful devotee who always stayed true to you. You have kept me, however, and I’m grateful.
Someone wrote a poem and said, “Jesus, I don’t know who you are.” I do know you, Srila Prabhupada, in a real sense. You are my friend, my guru, the first devotee I ever met. I do know who you are, although only partially. You . . . (the lights just went out in your room. Now I’m holding a flashlight to the page.) Srila Prabhupada, I know you, and I’ll sit in darkness until you enlighten me further. Let me be true and cross over all the bridges and rivers ahead and be with you throughout my life.
I feel head pain and heart pain and nervous tension. Dear spiritual master, please protect me. I don’t care—I mean I do care what people think when I say to them, “I have to cancel our meeting, I have a headache.” I never cancel my service to you. Thank you.
Prabhupada, you are wearing a multi-colored flower garland, with red and yellow daisies and roses. You also have a fine garland made of small, white, unopened buds. You look kind and thoughtful, fatherly and serious. You are ready to give me your attention. An Indian family stands looking at you in your museum setting.
They walk on, more pious than I, but I am one of yours.
I cheer up when I think
I’m an insider
to your ISKCON tirtha,
the residence of His Divine Grace
in Krishna-Balaram Mandir.
Prabhupada, I often get headaches. I have had these headaches for years now. I didn’t have headaches when I was face to face with you. Maybe you would have thought I was a nonsense. Instead, I served you vigorously and took Tylenol and Anacin and kept going, sometimes passionately, foolishly, competing for a high post and your attention. Now I’m physically diminished and at least outwardly, you don’t demand as much.
Forgive me my thoughts.
I want to serve your high command,
but I’m not a slashing soldier
anymore.
I need time alone and even
if that sounds funny, I will
prove that I can write something worthy.
Then you will say, “Leave him alone.
He’s doing as much as you,
but he has headaches.”
Maybe you doubt
that I am really sick.
But I am. I don’t bluff.
And I’m active in my way.
At this rate, I can’t expect to go back to Godhead in one lifetime, but I’m trying to make my claim that I am yours. Wherever I go next life, let it be connected to you. Someone said that in the next life—if we are not 100% perfect—we may be born three hundred years ago among the devotees of Lord Caitanya. And then in the life after that, we may be born a hundred years after Lord Caitanya and associate with Narottama dasa Thakura. I can’t help but think that I want my rasa with you. Let me be like Hanuman is toward Lord Rama. This may sound crazy and insincere since I have a craving to write so “freely,” but I do it all for you. I desire to be fixed as your sisya and intimate.
pp. 42-46
Recently a national news magazine ran a full-page ad entitled “I Think That Ad Is Lying.” The text announced, “Most advertisers work very hard to make sure their advertising is completely honest and truthful. But if you ever see an advertisement or commercial that you think takes liberties with the truth or makes questionable claims, there is something you can do about it. Write to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB).”
On receiving a complaint, the NARB (which is made up of leading advertisers and business organizations) will go after the advertiser and ask for some substantiation of the claims made. Believe it? We don’t. Anyone who thinks that he is going to stop advertising lies by writing to the NARB is in illusion. Newspaper, magazine, and TV advertising thrives on a lie the lie that we can attain happiness only by buying more and more material things and no advertising board has any intention of recanting.
On the flip side of the NARB ad we find a full-page ad for Virginia Slims. Here we learn that although seventy years ago a woman smoking a cigarette would have been considered scandalous, now an up-to-date fashion model can hold a Virginia Slim with impunity implying that by inhaling smoke and nicotine, “You, too, can become a happy, liberated woman.” Women’s liberation aside, the linking of the Slim cigarette with freedom and well-being is a deliberately created illusion. Far from being a symptom of progress, cigarettes are so unwholesome that the government requires that each ad display the statement, “Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health.” And yet the billboards show virile men (including cowboys from imaginary Marlboro country) and photogenic women, all bravely overlooking the government’s warning and asking us, “Why don’t you overlook it, too?”
Advertising has such a stranglehold on the truth that practically speaking, newspapers and magazines exist as vehicles for paid ads or commercials. And that’s why journalists and editors have to keep coming up with those sensational “stories” just to sell the ads. (For instance, a photo of Hare Krishna devotees is often included in an article about dangerous cults, simply because shaven-headed Krishna monks are easily identifiable as “cultists.” So, what if it’s an untruth? It helps get those papers and magazines sold, and that’s what the media are all about.) So, our very news media have become simply accomplices in lying.
As many people realize, the happiness of the men and women in the advertisements is an illusion. But as with most other illusions, this does not mean that the real thing doesn’t exist somewhere else. In a mirage on the desert, the animal thinks he sees water, and he runs after the illusion until he dies. Water exists, but not in the mirage. Similarly, there is real happiness, undoubtedly, and real well-being, but we cannot attain it by running after some advertiser’s dreamland where we’re told we’ll be happy by buying Brand X, Y, or Z. In Bhagavad-gita, the ancient guidebook to spiritual well-being, real happiness is described as something not dependent on extravagant material consumption:
The stage of perfection… is characterized by one’s ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses… Upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain.
In his commentary on this verse, Srila Prabhupada has written, “As long as the material body exists, one has to meet the demands of the body namely eating, sleeping, defending, and mating. But a person who is in pure bhakti-yoga, or Krishna consciousness, does not arouse the senses while meeting the demands of the body. Rather, he accepts the necessities of life, making the best use of a bad bargain, and enjoys transcendental happiness in Krishna consciousness.”
Transcendental knowledge is rarely seen in public nowadays, and much of the blame lies with commercial interests that are covering over our most precious possession spiritual life. But even a mass advertising or propaganda campaign for hedonistic living cannot extinguish man’s original God consciousness. Nor can anyone ever be satisfied simply by more and more material accumulation. So, the devotees of Krishna are suggesting that the real path to happiness is the revival of our original God consciousness. And although the age may be sold out to commercial interests, it is never too late for an individual to reject the mass mind control of even the most powerful advertising machinery and turn his individual soul in the direction of the Supreme. There he will find his original state of eternity, bliss, and knowledge. (Back to Godhead, 14(2/3), February/March 1979)
pp. 59-63
I felt reticent this morning, even in communing with the plants, hills, and sky. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I knew they couldn’t converse with me about chanting. I preferred not to think about the livestock in the pastures at all. I heard them crying out as usual, and it reminded me how they are all waiting to be slaughtered. I just walked along under my two hoods, and prayed to stay under the mental hood of the chanting. There is nothing in the fourteen worlds except the chanting of the holy names.
Halfway through the walk, the sky became lighter, and a wind picked up. When I could finally see the morning weather, I saw a sky filled with heavy, gray clouds. I thought it would rain before I made it back.
Goloka dasa asked me his questions. He’s with the group who came from America. He is excited to be in Ireland for the first time and is looking for personal exchanges with me. I am also enlivened to be with him.
Goloka is no exception to the rule of devotees admitting their chanting is inattentive, but he added, “Sometimes there is focus and some actual happiness derived from chanting.” I was more interested in hearing about his happiness than his inattention. Inattention is old stuff around here. We hear about it all the time. It’s a heart-breaker to have to speak positively about it—I feel like a hypocrite—”How much qualification is needed or what is the qualification to get the taste?”
Goloka said that he finds the best way to be attentive is to chant in a prayerful mood, “praying for spiritual things like ability to do my service to guru, prayers for taste, prayers to a particular Deity. Should this be cultivated, or is the goal a simple glorification of the holy name?”
All the prayers he mentioned are good. At our neophyte stage, we may not even know what it means to “make simple glorification of the holy name.” The most effective prayerful mood is given in Prabhupada’s mini-translation of the Hare Krsna mantra: “O Lord, O energy of the Lord, please engage me in Your service.” That prayer includes various kinds of services, and it certainly includes the service of glorifying the holy names. We want to serve Krsna and His eternal associates in Vrndavana, but we know we can’t pray exclusively for that.
First we have to pray to have our anarthas removed. Chanting itself will cleanse the dirt accumulated for many lifetimes together (ceto-darpana-marjanam). Therefore, we stress attentive chanting. It’s not that we’re hung up on some technicality called “inattention,” as if it’s just another kind of mental gymnastics. But because we have faith in the holy name, and we know we are fallen, we long to surrender to the yajna of hearing the holy names. If only we could pay attention, then everything would be accomplished.
“Sometimes there is nothing but the vow to hold on to,” Goloka said. “At these times, hope for taste is so low and it turns mechanical . . . ” At that time, he puts his beads down and goes and does something else for which he has more immediate taste. Then he goes back to the japa. “Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, and I turn into a bead-pusher.”
It’s natural that each of us try different methods to bring about an immediate result. “Let me get a drink of water. Maybe when I come back my chanting will be less mechanical.” I try it and it works, or it doesn’t. Or it works this week and not next week. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to keep trying these different methods. We just have to be ready for a long, persistent endeavor. “A mui determinado determinacion.”
I think that we shouldn’t even look for immediate improvement, but instead look to make more effort in chanting, to give more devotion in terms of what we know is devotion. Devotion can be expressed by giving money, time, energy, and by sacrificing our interests for the cause. In terms of japa, we can give more time and energy to our chanting. When we make that sacrifice, that will be a positive symptom that we are becoming serious. But when we make the sacrifice, we shouldn’t immediately expect a result. Just giving time and energy is a symptom that the chanting is working on us.
It is nice that Goloka dasa is thinking like that.
pp. 27-29
tribhir guna-mayair bhavair
ebhih sarvam idam jagat
mohitam nabhijanati
mam ebhyah param avyayamDeluded by the three modes [goodness, passion and ignorance], the whole world does not know Me, who am above the modes and inexhaustible.
—Bhagavad-gita 7.13
During the 1960s, I made attempts at “mind expansion.” One time I meditated in a graveyard and tried to go beyond whatever thought came to my mind. I wanted to meet the spirits of the dead and go beyond that. Finally I broke through, performed a kind of mental somersault, and “discovered” that there was eternal existence beyond the grave. I got up from where I was sitting and walked confidently down the grass avenues between the gravestones, looking up at the sky and stars and knowing that there was life beyond death.
I don’t remember that I even bothered to tell anyone what had happened. After a while, the whole thing faded except for a theoretical conviction that there was life after death and that you could walk beyond the rows of the dead and enter the eternal, starry sky. I was disappointed.
As long as we are within the modes of material nature, no concocted efforts at self-realization will enable us to know the transcendent reality. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura says, “The materialistic demeanor cannot possibly stretch to the transcendental autocrat who is ever inviting the fallen conditioned souls to associate with Him through devotion, or eternal serving mood.” The Supreme Lord is inviting us, but we can only know Him on His terms. It is a relief to hear the Bhagavad-gita verse in which Krsna says, “The whole world does not know Me who am above the modes.” Here the “whole world” means all of us in the modes of goodness, passion, and ignorance. We cannot know Him because we are entangled in our world of designations.
The ascending process cannot work. You can build fabulous mental castles in the air, but as high as they may go, they fall far short of the spiritual world. As stated in the Vedas, even if you could travel for millions of years on an airship which moved at the speed of mind, you would never approach the transcendental world. Even if you think you have outdone every other previous thinker and meditator, Lord Krsna is far, far beyond you. It is only our ignorance and vanity which move us to think we can approach Him on our own. As Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati says, “People are so much apt to indulge in transitory speculations even when they are to educate themselves on a situation beyond their empiric area of experiencing jurisdiction.”
If we really want to transcend the modes of nature, which bind us down with temporality and misery, we should consult the Vedic sages. These authorities have long ago chalked out the path beyond death and recorded it in Sanskrit codes for everyone to follow. There is no need to invent something new, which will surely be faulty due to our imperfect motives and tiny intelligence. (And in our attempt to reach the Absolute, any error will throw us far off the mark. We have seen a parallel to this in modern space travel, where a little mistake in computation or mechanical engineering results in fatal explosions on the launching pad.) Lord Brahma, one of the greatest authorities in Vedic knowledge, has therefore said that one should give up speculative attempts to know the eternal truth and should sit down and hear from pure devotees. This is the method of sabda, or faithful hearing. As Narottama dasa Thakura says, golokera prema dhana hari-nama sankirtana, “The chanting of Hare Krsna comes straight from Krsnaloka.” The sound vibrations of God’s names, as well as descriptions of His teachings and pastimes, all come down from the spiritual world and penetrate this material world for those who give them a faithful hearing.
Therefore it is really a simple act, to hear about Krsna. If we hear about Krsna and agree to follow His teachings, from that point we actually enter the path of liberation. We don’t achieve transcendence by a somersault in the graveyard, but by patient, regular hearing and practice. Yet from the very beginning we can understand that Krsna consciousness is durable and will not dissipate overnight.
My dear Lord Krsna,
from within the modes,
no one can know You.
But You have kindly come to us
in the form of Sri Krsna,
the eternal all-attractive youth.
We pray that You’ll appear to us
despite the guttas
which drag us down even while
we try to gain sight of You.
Please appear to us
in this unhappy world,
please never leave us;
please accept our service.
All glories to Your names!
All glories to Your pure devotees!
All glories to Srimad-Bhagavatam!
May we go on hearing, chanting,
seeing, and touching Your divine forms,
and serving Your pure devotee.
Even if for a long time
the gunas still cling to us,
we know now You are Truth,
and we are going back to Godhead.
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.