Free Writes Bhisma’s Passing Away In our out-loud reading at mealtimes, we are hearing the Second Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. It is very technical about the creation of the cosmos. We find it less interesting than the First Canto, which is filled with juicy sections such as Maharaja Pariksit’s punishing Kali, who he found beating a […]

Free Writes Chanting Out Loud In Sacinandana Swami’s new book, The Living Name, he recommends chanting japa out loud so that you can hear the Names. This is the standard teaching that Prabhupada gave. For months, I have been chanting silently in my mind, fearing that out-loud chanting would prevent a headache. I know of […]

Free Writes Guru Our Nurse Practitioner knows that we are Hare Krsna devotees. He looked it up on Internet and discovered I was a guru. He asked me how long it took to become a guru. I told him it takes many years. There are many qualifications for a guru, as stated in the scriptures. […]

Free Writes Back to Godhead Magazine Prabhupada began writing and publishing BTG before he was a sannyasi and before he came to America. It was a modest several-page newsletter, but it had vital, interesting essays by Abhay Charan De. Abhay wrote on topical issues: politics, current events, etc. These were written in the 1940s, but […]

Free Writes Chess Players There is a group of black men who play chess every day near the harinama party in Union Square Park. One of the players didn’t like the harinama singers. He complained that they make too much noise and disturb him. The other chess players set him up: if he lost the […]

Free Writes Chalice In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus went to pray, he said to God the Father, “Please do not put this chalice [of suffering] before me.” Then he said, “But Your will, not mine.” In the churning of the milk ocean, Dhanvantari appeared holding a chalice containing the nectar which the demigods […]

Two Burfis I ate two and they were delicious, made from the milk of Gita-nagari cows. But even as I took the second one, I realized I should have limited myself to one. One was satisfying and enough; two was piggish. It could lead to weight gain. Although I was saved because it was prasadam, […]

Free Writes Dais For the first year at 26 Second Avenue we had no vyasasana for Prabhupada. We had only built him a wooden platform with a pillow on it and a backrest. In a lecture from that time, Prabhupada said, “I am sitting on this dais . . .” He went on to say […]