Satsvarupa dasa Goswami Maharaja
Spiritual Family CelebrationSaturday, July 5, 2025
What
Meeting of Disciples and friends of SDG
Where
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall
845 Hudson Avenue
Stuyvesant Falls, New York 12173There 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 P.M. Book Table
12:30 – 1:15 P.M. Arati and kirtana
1:15 — 2:15 P.M. Prasadam FeastContact
Baladeva Vidyabhusana at [email protected] or (518) 754-1108
Krsna dasi at [email protected] or (518) 822-7636SDG: “I request as many devotees as possible to attend so we can feel the family spirit strongly. I become very satisfied when we are all gathered together.”
******
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 20.124–125: “O great learned devotee, although there are many faults in this material world, there is one good opportunity—the association with devotees. Such association brings about great happiness. . . . .”
Srila Prabhupāda: “Therefore, our Society is association. If we keep good association, then we don’t touch the darkness. What is the association? There is a song, sat-saṅga chāḍi’ kainu asate vilāsa, te-kāraṇe lāgila mora karma-bandha-phāṅsa (Gaurā Pahū, verse 3). Sat-saṅga. Sat-saṅga means association with the devotees. So the one poet, Vaiṣṇava poet, is regretting that, ‘I did not keep association with the devotees, and I wanted to enjoy life with the nondevotees. Therefore I’m being entangled in the fruitive activities.’ Karma bandha phāṅsa. Entanglement.” [Conversation with David Wynne, July 9, 1973, London]
Dr. Nitai Gaurasundara is an MD who did his fellowship in psychiatry. He gets credit for identifying the trigger for Satsvarupa Maharaja’s migraine headaches in 2001 (known as “anticipatory anxiety”) and says key elements of the diagnosis came from reading all of SDG’s books. He gets credit for stopping the migraines for many years with allopathic medicine. He is now working closely with the neurologist Dr. Koszer to get the recent rash of headaches under control. Nitai Gaurasundara (Dr. Singh) calls on the telephone four to five times a week and visits two to three times a year to closely monitor the disease. He also is in touch with an able group of associates who give advice on the many different troubles an 85-year-old devotee may come across. Nitai Gaurasundara has an excellent personal sadhana program, so he is qualified to treat the various stress related diseases experienced by senior preachers after decades of intense service to Prabhupada.
Hare Krsna,
Baladeva
If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at [email protected] or [email protected] and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.
Just a thought—in December I could chant thirty-two rounds a day, write another directed journal such as Begging For the Nectar of the Holy Name, and spend time reading.
******
O master, Srila Prabhupada, you are my household deity. O murti of mine,
my sentimental song becomes purified
when I sing it for you. Please rest warmly and rise as you like
to write with dictaphone your Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Then kindly chant japa
with me.
Lord of all, in my heart,
please grant me better chanting.
******
Slobby Miskept, yeah, we know the type. He does the externals, sometimes, and acts like an avadhuta, talking about the gopis despite his lack of qualification. Better to start from the beginning, Slobby, and follow the rules, chant the rounds, and follow the Swami. Don’t be miskept and misled.
******
The words: “bored,” “dry,” “empty.” We watch ourselves going through the motions and wonder why we don’t chant more. It’s something to do. We’d feel bored, empty, and dry no matter what we were doing sometimes, but that shouldn’t stop our attempt to increase our surrender to hari-nama. Chanting will take us where we want to go. And I know I’ve said this before, but I feel the same way about my writing service. The more I write, the more I will be able to forge ahead in the way I want to go. Simply chant (and for me, write). It doesn’t have to be pretend°. us (there’s that word again).
When I am alone, I like to try to sink into a bhajana mood. That means more chanting, actually vocalizing the cries of “Dry!” “Alone!” “Bored!” “Is this all there is?”—through the words of the Hare Kona mantra, and always looking for more.
******
It’s funny when you chant more what goes through your mind. You might think you have some secret to convey to the devotees, but maybe you don’t. Often, all you feel from increased chanting is the sheer increase itself. I mean, more moving of the abacus counter beads. That’s all. Still, an under-current develops as you recite the holy name more and more. The Vaisnava “ordeal” to chant as Lord Caitanya ordered. Our perfection will be found there. If we give our hearts.
******
Prabhupada compared child marriage in Vedic culture to the practice of Deity worship. When the bride and groom are so young, there’s really no question of love between them, but the custom is that the girl brings some food to the husband and does little services for him, and in this way they have various exchanges although they continue to live with their parents. By going through the motions of marriage, however, the husband and wife gradually become attached to each other until they fall so much in love that they would never leave one another. This gradual development of love is compared to vaidhi-bhakti. What is true of Deity worship is also true of chanting. Chant, chant, chant, without love, chant, chant, chant with offenses—but eventually … gets knocked away (doubts, fears, pain, something . . . a loss of taste, over-familiarity, you know).
******
O Krsna, I want to chant better japa today now that I’m not in pain. But I know
the mind won’t listen
to the syllables of the mantra
and I can’t drive hard and fast.
******
I was speaking about spontaneity, but when I chant, I can see I’m not a spontaneous lover of Krsna. I ground out two extra rounds with Prabhupada’s japa tape and imagined that I could be doing other things instead. To keep going I told myself, “What if this is the last evening of your life?” That didn’t hit me so hard, but it was enough to hold on to the rounds.
Please, Lord, please. I can only become truly Krsna conscious if You give me Your mercy. I can read endlessly but still not get Your mercy. You have to actually give it to me. There is nothing I can do to attain it. Please let me chant, and let me pray while I chant.
******
Hope against hope that I could improve in these last days of the year. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to become firmly fixed (nighti) in mostly exclusive reading of Prabhupada’s books? And chanting?
******
What kind of blasphemer is this?
Throw him out, some say.
Others recognize my worth as
I ardently, silently walk in the woods.
I can live peacefully
chanting the holy names and
not see anyone and gain
a good reputation and
keep writing, keep reading,
sometimes with others,
from Prabhupada’s purport on four kinds of men who don’t surrender to God.
I can also listen and listen to Caitanya-caritamrta regarding Ramananda Raya’s talks
This is what you get
if you ask me for a poem.
******
O Hare Krsna, the urge to
be saintly, the urge to sin—
these two urges play upon his nerves.
Don’t believe a word of it. He makes up a story about a person joining the Hare Krsna temple, and it’s fiction for sophisticated fools. He delivers an interreligious address and is applauded and writes it up in his diary where he also states that he will refrain from another day of sin but he thinks of himself as one in the universe. Hare Krsna comes straight from Krsnaloka, but with chanting I have no connection. Day and night I am burning in the dark world without seeking to make the connection. Srila Prabhupada noted that in Paris they drink on the street and the churches are empty, but the “Follies” attract thousands. Other cities are like that too.
pp. 148-51
“But if I die in this condition
my mission will remain unfulfilled.
Please therefore pray to Prabhu Lord Chaitanya
and Vrindaban Bihar, to rescue me this time.
My mission is still not finished.”
It was enough to fell any man,
but he asked his students to pray,
“Our master has not finished his work.”
A bhakti-yogi can evade death’s blow,
and by Krishna’s grace his life’s duration may grow,
and he may step on the head of approaching Death
to go on with his mission in this world.
In Kirtanananda’s presence
Swamiji fell back and cried, “Hare Krishna!”
That was the moment
it was supposed to end,
by normal calculations.
But he kept going,
the heart kept going,
the mission kept going,
and then he asked for the mantra to be sung,
the prayer to Lord Nrsimha,
and the all-night-praying.
“Our master has not finished . . .”
Krishna carried him over,
as on the Jaladuta
when Krishna had appeared,
reassuring him from a boat.
Stonehearted, dull, selfish youth
got a chance to touch the body
of the pure devotee
in his difficulty while serving Krishna.
“What’s going on?”—the devotees were baffled,
as one by one to the storefront they came
expecting to see Swamiji preaching and strong.
But instead he lay in his room,
and they received pieces of paper
with the prayer on it.
“But who are we to pray?
Isn’t he the only one
who can really pray to the Lord and know Him?”
But he wanted them to pray,
to massage and to worry
how to take care of him
and to decide what to do.
When Acyutananda paused with his mouth open,
Swamiji said, “Why are you idle? Chant Hare Krishna!”
They called San Francisco temple and told
how Swamiji had fallen back,
had almost passed away,
and had cried out,
“Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!”
Kirtan through the night . . .
“Krishna should not see us sleeping.
What else can we do
but try to chant and pray?”
And they talked:
“Swamiji was not under karma.
How could a pure devotee
be subject to a death blow?”
“The spiritual master may have to suffer
for the misbehavior of his disciples,
but never think he has ordinary pain.”
“By allowing us to massage,
it is another way
to serve him more closely.”
“So many devotees are praying on his behalf.”
Still we are dealing hammer blows
to maya in this world,
and Prabhupada has warned us
there will be reaction.
Remembering that night
when helplessly we prayed
from the pieces of paper,
we still pray to Lord Nrsimha.
Recalling the emergency
and the prayers and chants required,
we pray to Prabhupada to guide us
through nights when the stab of maya
hits so hard
we think this is the end.
We must pray to be like him,
as he called out, “Hare Krishna!”
and then went on defying death,
leading us, even in his illness.
pp. 80-81
When I asked Srila Prabhupada if I could take sannyasa, I had already been living separately from my wife for over a year. When ISKCON Press decided to move from Boston to New York, my wife chose to leave me and go with the Press. She (and they) said she needed the association of the other artists. They worked together as a tight team. It would not be good for her service to live with me in the Boston temple and try to paint on her own. Going to New York was service, staying with her husband was almost like maya. That’s how she saw it. I went to New York to visit her a few times, but it wasn’t like a real marriage. Then I moved to Dallas to work with the gurukula, and we were really apart.
Then came the flurry of taking sannyasa by the GBC men. TKG took rather early. Then Sudama took. Then a secretary’s newsletter came from Shyamasundara saying Prabhupada wanted the GBC to get out from behind their desks and go out and preach. Prabhupada was coming to Los Angeles, and a number of men asked him to take sannyasa. Rupanuga, a solid householder with a wife and child, was volunteering to take. Bali Maharaj, a brahmacari GBC of New York, would take. A surprisingly young man, Hridayananda, asked to take although he had recently been married, and Prabhupada said yes. So from Dallas I wrote to Prabhupada and asked if I could take. He wrote back simply and briefly, and said yes I should come to L.A. and get initiated with the rest. There would be four men taking sannyasa together. Karandhara couldn’t take because he was too much committed to management in LA.
I wrote my wife a letter, not asking her permission, but telling her Prabhupada had accepted me. I complimented her, and said she was a better devotee than these men with their dandas. And I flew to Los Angeles. Prabhupada didn’t give us any cross-examination or tests. There was a sannyasi there visiting (I don’t remember who), and he was to get us ready with sannyasa clothes. I think Visnujana Maharaj helped with the dandas. Prabhupada accepted us, trusting we were serious. The ceremony was held on Lord Nrsimha’s Appearance Day in 1972. The temple room was crowded, and there was a fire ceremony.
Prabhupada lectured about Prahlada and Hiranyakasipu. After his lecture we four men took our clothes and left the room to put them on. A sannyasi helped us. We came back into the temple room. I walked up to Srila Prabhupada on the vyasasana, and he handed me a danda. He said, “Preach, preach, preach.” Three times like that, emphasizing what the purpose of sannyasa was in his eyes.
The next morning the new sannyasis walked with him on the beach. It was chilly, and we were freshly shaved. It felt like tapasya. I asked him if it was true that a sannyasi offers his food to the danda. He laughed and said, “No.” We spent the day going door-to-door collecting money for guru daksina. I went with Hridayananda Maharaj. We didn’t collect much. We went and gave it to Prabhupada. He said some things I wrote down in a notebook that I included in my book ISKCON in the 70s. I got an assistant, Janmanjaya, and a car, and we went to San Francisco. I lectured in the temple, then we traveled south and stopped in places and talked to people about Krishna consciousness. It wasn’t very productive. At the Janmastami festival in New Vrindavan, I decided to team up with Hridayananda Maharaja and make a tour of colleges. We did that for a while. We broke up. I traveled to temples in my GBC zone. I was an ISKCON sannyasi.
pp. 69-75
I awoke to a tumultuous sound. I have never heard such a loud and commanding sound in my life. Rather than try to describe it here, I can better say what it feels like. There is a tremendous sound of thunder. I am afraid. There is something supernatural about it, something insistent. My hairs are standing on end. This sound is like a hundred thunders, and it hasn’t stopped. It seems to be cracking the covering of the entire sky. I’m sure everyone else, like me, thinks that the planet is being destroyed. Is it a bomb? An earthquake?
There, I’ve crawled along the ceiling beam to the edge of the roof. There are big cracks in the tile and I can see outside. Although it’s night, the sky is filled with light. Clouds are scattered here and there. Raksasa airplanes are being thrown up into outer space as if from an explosion. But there is no smoke, no fire, just light. From my perch I can see the agitated sea foaming. The hills seem to be growing, but at the same time, the earth seems to be slipping down. At first I was thinking it was an earthquake, but it doesn’t add up. The light is unearthly. It diminishes the stars and the moon.
People are running in the street completely dazed and looking around for the origin of the sound. Everyone is terrified. Elephants are screaming.
I am praying by saying the Lord’s names. If this is the end, then let me die while chanting and thinking of Krsna. Surely Krsna is behind this wonderful tumultuous sound and light. Will we all be destroyed? Krsna!
The baker just unbolted the closet door and called me. “What’s happening?” I asked.
“Someone says the palace is being attacked,” he said. We hear the palace sirens ringing, although they are puny compared to The Sound. The militia and police and special combat soldiers are racing to the palace. From the direction of the palace, al-though it is a few miles away, we can hear screams and the sound of clashing weapons.
I said, “Let’s sit down and chant, what else can we do?” A few Vaisnava friends are arriving, and we are all prepared to chant Hare Krsna until our last breaths. We are still afraid of Hiranyakasipu, so we have turned off the lights. But there doesn’t seem to be any reason to be shy anymore about calling out the holy names. We aren’t thinking straight, but at least we are together, uttering His names: Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
As we chant, the sky continues to scintillate with a beautiful light, and the earth is filled with tremors. The thunderous roar holds us in awe.
Not much time has passed, but suddenly the atmosphere has changed. The roaring continues, but it is slightly subdued. From all directions, there is now a palpable sensation of relief. We devotees are looking at each other because we can all instantly feel it and recognize it. Something very auspicious must have happened. Up to this point, the streets have been filled with shouts and military orders. Rumors were flying fast as to what was actually happening. Everything was completely contradictory and confusing. Someone said that the demigods were being destroyed, and others said that the demons were vanquished. But now everything feels certain and peaceful.
One of the young boys said, “Krsna must have come. Hiranyakasipu is dead!”
Still, we’re not so brave as to wander out. We are keeping our places. The chanting of Hare Krsna remains appropriate. With increased strength and with many of us displaying bodily symptoms of ecstasy, our little group goes on calling, Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Daityaji just burst into the room! He is still breathless from running, but he looks completely sanctified, transformed into a Vaikuntha being. But it’s my son!
“I saw it!” Tears are streaming from his eyes and I know they are the cool tears of transcendental joy.
“With His claw . . . ” Daityaji said and made a claw with his tiny hand and fingernails. “I saw His claw! His nails . . . He tore out the king of demon’s intestines and put them around His neck! . . . ”
He went on to tell us what he saw and partially realized. It has since been told by many eyewitnesses, and has been expressed in choice poetic language by the great sages as Vedic sastra. We were on the outskirts and also saw wondrous things that have never been seen before. By the grace of Prahlada Maharaja, my son was present to see the appearance of Lord Nrsimhadeva, who killed the king of demons and then sat on his throne.
tava kara-kamala-vare nakham adbhuta-srngam
dalita-hiranyakasipu-tanu-bhrngam
kesava dhrta-narahari-rupa jaya jagadisa hare
jaya jagadisa hare
jaya jagadisa hare
pp. 36-39
“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
COMMENTARY (New notes by SDG):
Prabhupāda 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 Prabhupāda’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 Prabhupāda’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 Prabhupāda’s standards.
“Be sure to read my books very carefully, Bhagavad-gītā, then Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, then Caitanya-caritāmṛta. You should read every day without fail.”
—Letter to Urvaśī Patel, July 25, 1975
COMMENTARY (New Notes by SDG):
Prabhupāda 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. Prabhupāda 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.”
—Letter to Hridayānanda Goswami, January 6, 1972
COMMENTARY (New notes by SDG):
Prabhupāda read a concocted philosophy letter from one devotee, and Prabhupāda 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, Prabhupāda 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.
Prabhupāda gives the example that Lord Caitanya’s secretary, Svarūpa Dāmodara, would not accept any literary offering that deviated from Lord Caitanya’s teachings, so too does Prabhupāda discourage his disciples from writing in the spirit of speculation.
“Actually, these books are the founding stone of our movement. Whatever we are is resting on these books, reading and distributing them. That should be our only motto.”
—Letter to Hridayānanda Goswami, October 31, 1974
COMMENTARY:
Hridayānanda Goswami had written to Prabhupāda saying he was making sure the devotees maintain their devotional practices. In reply, Prabhupāda expresses his pleasure … and says that this is the “secret to success.” Then he instructs Hridayānanda to set the example: “If you show yourself as an ideal Vaiṣṇava, then you are my representative in fullness. We are not after titles and designations. Lord Caitanya made it a principle that we preach by personal example.” Prabhupāda then states that the exemplary behavior of his disciples will assure a glorious future for the movement…. leaders cannot inspire the devotees to increase their reading simply by making announcements or passing down legislation.
—Reading Reform, p. 40
“Regarding our books, yes, they are being printed in our press, and they will come out very shortly. The books are written specifically for my students, and I am so glad to learn that you read them so carefully. The words are ambrosial because they are not my personal words but are instructions of my predecessors, and I am trying to administer them to the best of my knowledge. That is the way of the paramparā system.”
—Letter to Jayapatākā dāsa brahmacārī, April 17, 1970
COMMENTARY:
As a brahmacārī Jayapatākā had praised Prabhupāda’s books as ambrosial. In this letter Prabhupāda humbly replies that his books are ambrosial, but not because of his own inventiveness. He then explains that his books are ambrosial because the paramparā is ambrosial, and he describes himself as being but the carrier of the ambrosial message. Such a carrier may consider himself to be but a faithful peon or messenger (and he might even be considered so by others).Yet this nice messenger is carrying the ambrosia of the words of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and this is the greatest service). As Arjuna says to Kṛṣṇa, “I am never satiated in hearing about You, for the more I hear the more I want to taste the nectar of Your words” (Bg. 10.18). However, if one tries to himself be the source of ambrosia, then that is false ego. Prabhupāda always remained a faithful carrier of the nectar of Kṛṣṇa, and that is the great gift to all of us. This makes him millions of times greater than the one who tries to be the source of nectar by himself.
—Reading Reform, pp. 41–42
pp. 23-28
I wake thinking, “Now hear the surf.
Open your ears to it”—
the thuds and boom reminds
me of women slapping laundry
on the riverbank. This
is Nature’s all-night work,
God behind it remotely.
Work of ocean you can’t
understand. Why the ocean?
So big yet these oceans are just
full teacups floating
on planets in outer space.
Here I am on the shore of one.
My soul a tiny spark of God’s
immensity. Scratch your pen,
connect. It’s God
Himself and service to His
devotees headed by Radharani
whom we are urged to know—
beyond aisvarya. Remember?
Prabhupada is teaching you:
listen to the surf
and get up and chant.
Waves long rhythm
dithyramb, the shouts reached
a high peak at noon.
What’s that? I look out,
some dark jokers in rubber tubes
a little further out and a line
of shouting timid surf riders.
I like it better at night and
overnight at 1, 2, 3 A.M.,
they’ve got bright lights on
towers to keep the beach crime-free.
But it’s a crime they
don’t come here to remember Sri
Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu,
a crime the sellers and dogs litter
and they don’t let us into the temple,
it’s a crime
that I complain
and waste time.
Pinch me a little and I howl,
can’t hear myself think,
sink. The surfers here don’t
risk drowning and neither do I.
Nothing ventured …
I know it’s eternal,
the washing in tide,
waves
touch and withdraw undertow.
I dreamt of my master.
He was holding a special
class to teach pottery …
these things are my own …
but the ocean is everyone’s—
everyone’s Lord Caitanya,
I speak a salty drop
of ocean chanting.
Night at Puri is blessed, we’re
in a sheltered place, can rest hearing
God’s waves the soothing
nature ocean without
much interference of people
and their horns and voices straining.
The planet bends
around in a circle and all along
the ocean edge the water froths and
spills upon beaches beyond our sight.
At midnight where is the moon?
The air is blowing. A bird calls.
People quiet down,
I drift away in
sleep in my own room, sleep
under nets, and dream of devotees …
I am not yet
at the pure, advanced stage where
I see Krsna but
I go to sleep happy to wake
and hear.
Waves covering, enveloping,
peaceful now the day’s surf
foolishness is over and the fishermen’s
work is over. The sea is
by itself, washing the beach more
completely, not threatening to
flood us (although you sense
it could happen).
Waves of Puri—I stay indoors,
don’t see temples or Deities
or sadhus with elephantiasis.
Just stay indoors and while
surf roars I speak to our group about japa
how to face our lackings.
Tough guy: “No pastry puffs in
the name of japa notes.”
But now I’m silent,
relaxed, at peace,
the night surf is on the way,
motors die down,
dogs not visible—one stout
brown one grabbed the
skinny one by the neck
in his jaws
then let him go.
I watched from the balcony.
As sky darkens,
crows stop.
“Take rest early,” he advised.
Hear, hear
japa and waves
go together.
Waves sometimes sound like
wind or rain. Then I focus
and hear and recall what they are
and where I am.
Krishna-Balaram Mandir has the bell
and parrots.
Each place a certain sound. Here it’s the surf.
I’ll be sorry when I leave
and can’t hear the engulfing
surrounding sea.
We’re going to the Gambhira. There’s no way I will be able to capture Lord Caitanya’s mood there. The Gambhira caretakers will prevent it, and the various external conditions, and the condition of my heart. It might help if I could approach alone the way I approach little bridges on my Ireland walks. I could look down at the water, be startled by a duck scared to flight, and make little advances, meditative pauses—but there’s no chance. Just to touch that place will be purifying. It is inexplicably deep.
pp. 161-64
As we began to hear Srimati Radharani’s speech to the bumblebee, I was alert. But I realized it wouldn’t be possible for me to comment on this pastime in my VIHE seminar. For our little gather-ing, however, I wanted to speak if only to keep myself attentive. I said that any sincere religionist can enjoy these passages as the most sublime expression of love of God. We are inspired to hear of saints and sages in God consciousness. From that point of view—even if we cannot enter the maha-bhava sentiment of Radharani—all devotees can worship Radha’s “mad” love for Krsna. It is the most intense and intimate devotion that has ever been expressed.
Madhu dared to compare some things that Radharani said to our own devotional service. He said that we come to Krsna consciousness with an initial inkling that we will attain Krsna, but then He seems to hide Himself from us. Just as Radharani cannot leave Krsna or stop thinking of Him, so we are “trapped” and cannot leave Krsna consciousness—despite the fact that Krsna does not reveal Himself to us. This reminded me of Srila Prabhupada comparing Krsna consciousness to drinking hot molasses: it’s so hot you want to stop drinking it, but it tastes so sweet you can’t give it up. Srila Prabhupada translates Lord Caitanya’s prayers: “Krsna, You are free and independent in all respects . . . You may make me brokenhearted by not letting me see You throughout my whole life, but You are my only object of love.”
Srimati Radhdrani talked to the bee and went on accusing Kona. Uddhava was standing nearby, and as he heard Her, he was surprised to hear that She had become almost mad for Krsna. Then Uddhava said that he had brought a letter from Krsna.
As I was about to hear Krsna’s letter again I thought, “Oh, when the gopis heard the speech, they said it was jnana-yoga and they didn’t like it.” But when I heard it today I thought, “Oh good, this confirms what I’m trying to do in my writing. Krsna is everywhere.”
Uddhava began Krsna’s message: “‘My dear gopis, My dear friends, please know that separation between ourselves is impossible at any time, at any place or under any circumstances, because I am all-pervading.” The living entities are part and parcel of Krsna and the material elements, gross and subtle, are all His inferior energies. “Not only the gopis, but all living entities are always inseparably connected with Krsna in all circumstances.” The gopis are perfectly aware of this, whereas those in mays forget Krsna and think they have separate identities with no connection to Him. Srila Prabhupada says it is not possible to think of anything outside Krsna and His energies. Our minds are always occupied and always within Krsna. “One who knows this philosophical aspect of all thoughts is actually a wise man, and he surrenders unto Krsna” (KRSNA, Vol. 2, pp. 70-1).
I know this doesn’t condone thinking and writing whimsically and claiming, “Whatever I do is favorable Krsna consciousness.” But it is a fact that when I write a “captured moment,” it is connected to Krsna. Krsna is, so to speak, just around the corner. He is nearby, no matter where we are and what we write. All it takes is the Krsna conscious person with the right touch to manifest this truth. Srila Prabhupada writes, “Actually, any person who can think, feel, act, and will cannot be separated from Krsna. But the stage in which he can understand his eternal relationship with Krsna is called Krsna consciousness.”
So I am writing in the right direction. He who says, “This writing is not connected to Krsna” is mistaken. “Nothing is separate from Me. The whole cosmic manifestation is resting on Me, and is not separate from Me.”
This philosophy of bhakti is intricate and I don’t want to oversimplify it. For example, Krsna is expanded into the material energy, and yet He is not perceived in the material energy. He is perceived in the spiritual energy. Since the devotees’ eyes are spiritualized, they can see Krsna everywhere. “Indeed, the self-realized person sees Me, the same Supreme Lord, everywhere” (Bg. 6.29).
I am not giving myself a cheap carte blanche to write and do whatever I want in the name of devotional service, but I am excited by these explanations. They do seem to endorse that I can write from the heart and still be Krsna conscious. Indeed, I can practice seeing Krsna everywhere by writing whatever I feel, act, and will—in Krsna consciousness.
pp. 114-18
The first impression I recall of Jack Kerouac was seeing the photo of him in the New York Times, looking “beat.” Kerouac didn’t use the word “beatnik” himself, but beat. Beat expressed the attitude of a generation that was tired of war, tired of hassle. I saw Kerouac speaking at Hunter College, “Is the New York Times beat?” John Young, Tommy Oakland, and I read his books and felt we had to respond. He was describing the generation slightly older than ours, but it was similar to our generation.
On the Road was about American travel. John and Tommy began hitchhiking around the U.S.A. around the same time that we were all reading Kerouac. Maybe they were thinking they were like Kerouac’s Sal Paradise and Dean Moriority. John also wrote stories of his travels. Kerouac’s call to the road was a response to the doldrums, an escape from the strain with parents, a search for what life was about—hit the road, hitchhike, and find out. Kerouac wrote, “Somewhere along the line I knew there’d be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.”
I was restrained from joining my friends on the road by my retired nature and also the sword over my head known as the Naval Reserve. I had to be there at the Navy meeting every Tuesday night…. Although I did not travel, I imbibed the Kerouac doctrine. I liked the way he wrote:
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say the commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles. . . .
Almost everyone in his book was part of one loose gang or family. His friends were always meeting up with one another, traveling all the way from San Francisco to the East Coast and suddenly showing up at your house. The one thing they all had in common was that they were all searching. And belief in God was part of it, “And of course, no one can tell us that there is no God. We’ve passed through all forms . . . Everything is fine, God exists without qualms.”
The book went from East Coast to West, hitchhiking, making out sometimes with girls, getting drunk and high and talking in visions, and road and law problems. Kerouac described himself as a “strange, solitary, crazy, Catholic mystic.” He was extravagant, unlike me, but he was a writer, and he hinted that there might be an American sainthood, a new religion, but it would have to be found in a free way, by wandering and living a wild and rhapsodic life, “desiring everything at once.” I couldn’t keep up the pace, but some of it got into my blood. I thought, “Maybe some day.”
The sannyasi‘s life has always been one of freely traveling. A sannyasi is not supposed to stay in any place more than three days. Srila Prabhupada told us that there is even a class of sannyasis who keep in perpetual movement as a symbol of their renuncia-tion. When Lord Caitanya traveled on foot for six years throughout South India, He had a purpose to visit pilgrimage sites and to deliver whomever He met into Krsrta consciousness. Although He had His mission, one gets a sense by reading Caitanya-caritamrta, that the Lord had great freedom to go wherever he liked. Similarly, Narada Muni trav¬eled from one planet to another very freely. And Srila Prabhupada often describes Narada as “traveling without any engagement.” There is also a story from the life of St. Francis of Assisi, who walked with a companion. When they came to a crossroads, Francis asked his companion to spin around and around. Then he suddenly asked him to stop—wherever he was pointed, they went in that direction, for preaching.
Kerouac’s traveling, although it was searching, was mostly searching without finding. Many boys who came to Srila Prabhupada to become his disciples, had similar kinds of wanderlust. Prabhupada said that it had to be dovetailed in the service of Krsna or else it was useless touring:
I can understand you are planning to go on world tour, but I think there is no need for wasting your time on such world tour. Better you chant Hare Krishna sitting in one place, that is far better. What for you want to go on world tour—people everywhere are doing the same thing, eating, sleeping, mating and defending—each in some slightly different way, but same substance is there. There are the same streets, same people, same cars, same trees, etc., everywhere, some¬where a hill, somewhere sandy, somewhere some water—but what is the profit of seeing so much scenery? It is better if you want to travel, you can travel to preach and spread this Krishna Consciousness to the suffering humanity at large. You can travel with our samkirtana party if you like. They are presently here in Los Angeles, and they are making program to go to London, and then over Europe, then eventually on to India, etc. So if you want to travel, I recommend you travel with them, and chant Hare Krishna with them wherever you go. And you will profit by this sort of travel, whereas the other is a waste of time practically. . . .
—Letter of November 13, 1968
pp. 10-12
I’m doing all right, doing my work but I don’t have a set schedule for the early morning hours—after I did my hour of writing from 12:00-1:00, then I did an hour and a half of chanting, but after that it was a little spaced out. Reason is I’m very likely to get drowzy then and I can’t do very careful reading. I just felt not able to do most anything, I went from one thing to another. I did a little house cleaning and threw out some old manuscripts in the rooms, picked out a few books from my library that I might use and just sat and thought for a few minutes, couldn’t think of what to do.
Then I started answering some letters. One letter from Baltimore told about how one man was favorable to devotees and said that he had twice physically intervened to defend devotees, once at the temple and once on a bus. So that reminded me of course of that kind of activity that happens. How I don’t like to be there when it happens but it does happen and I’ll get my share of it too. Then I read another letter from Nityananda dasa in Guyana who said, “I have some sad news to tell”—told about an armed robbery at the temple. He went over to the temple at 3:30 A.M. and armed bandits whom he described as African pulled him into the temple. There Nityananda dasa saw that all the devotees were lying on their bellies and tied in ropes. The bandits were saying vulgar things to women and asking everybody questions and the whole temple was ransacked. They’d been there for two hours and then they finally left. That was certainly scary to hear and punctured any illusions I had from being on a retreat that the world just exists in my ruminations and poems and drawings and the most important thing is my little efforts and arts and so on. But that there are bandits, there are demons and sometimes devotees have to suffer at their hands.
I drew a few pictures with pastels—one of the armed robbery and then a kind of symbolic one I called “The fear in the heart,” showing a little frightened black and red figure with his stick hands and stick arms sticking out and mouth open. Then I drew a picture of goddess Kali, who I hope will deal with demons swiftly. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.
But I didn’t do free-writing. That’s unfortunate. Don’t shy away from it, Prabhu. Did you think it couldn’t help you? It always can help you. Maybe you thought, “I’ve got so much that I’ve written already that I can’t even read how can I add more to it.” That’s part of it, but I don’t know, that’s just not the right attitude. You’ll get time or not to read what you’ve written, but you got to keep writing for the practice of it. Okay, okay man, I will, I will.
And little thing here, this walk? Well, the walk is to tell that the walk is asphalt and I’m in The Woods. And after, it must have been five years since they started this development. They finally sold one plot and looks like a house is built. It’s nestled in off the road. I don’t want to go in there, maybe I’ll be trespassing although I don’t think people have moved in or that it’s completed yet. But it goes so slowly I guess real estate development isn’t so lively or this particular project didn’t catch up. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. But it’s got this asphalt road and it’s good for me so I’m trundling around here.
Beautiful morning, beautiful trees, beautiful sky despite the world of robberies and malice. Then if you are put in that position as those devotees, you have to turn within to Krsna. You’re sorry that Kma’s money is taken away. The robbers took the jewelry from the women. They didn’t commit any atrocities on their bodies fortunately and he didn’t mention anything about the beautiful Deities of Gaura-Nitai, so I suppose they didn’t do anything there. But still you’re very much afraid for the body and for just the sense of desecration and violation. It even can threaten your faith in Krsna. Why isn’t Krsna in the form of Lord Nrsimha coming to deal with these demons immediately? But they get their little space by free will before they’re punished. It’s a test for you to accept this humiliation and pray . It happens to karmis and it happens to devotees. It’s not that we’re singled out, but we get our doses, so you have to turn to Krsna then and really pray Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.
One day already gone, now there’s only twelve days left, eleven days, down it goes, down it goes. Okay, I’m producing, I’m producing. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna. It’s a challenge. It’s good news that I have to write more and that I’m asking myself to do my writing session. Just do a little something, please, Prabhu, and keep going, keep going, keep going.
Readers will find, in the Appendix of this book, scans of a cover letter written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja to the GN Press typist at the time, along with some of the original handwritten pages of June Bug. Together, these help to illustrate the process used by Mahārāja when writing his books during this period. These were timed books, in the sense that a distinct time period was allotted for the writing, during SDG’s travels as a visiting sannyāsī
Don’t take my pieces away from me. I need them dearly. My pieces are my prayers to Kṛṣṇa. He wants me to have them, this is my way to love Him. Never take my pieces away.
Many planks and sticks, unable to stay together, are carried away by the force of a river’s waves. Similarly, although we are intimately related with friends and family members, we are unable to stay together because of our varied past deeds and the waves of time.
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.