IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook
2. Srila Prabhupada Samadhi Diary
3. The Delaware Diaries
4. Living with the Scriptures
5. Remembering Srila Prabhupada
6. Back to Godhead Essays
7. Seeking New Land
8. The Best Use of a Bad Bargain

ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 6)

REFLECTIONS/JAPA MEDITATIONS

Krsna appeared in the womb of ISKCON. Although the chanting of the holy name is absolute, if chanted by someone performing sinful acts, then the full effect is not there. Allen Ginsberg went to India and brought back the holy name even before Prabhupada, but how effective was that marijuana-homosexual chanting? The holy name has to be chanted by one who is serving Srila Prabhupada in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Then the chanting is pure. Then the full effect is there.

******

There is no “secret” to japa; it is a struggle. There is no easy shortcut. The secret is to surrender to the struggle. The secret is to be afraid of death and to take it as very urgent that you must chant Hare Krsna. We used to have a slogan, “Chant while you can,” on some posters and show a scary picture of a graveyard. So we have to think like that: “Chant while you can.” That is the secret.

******

You develop love of Krsna by crying as a child cries for the mother, “Krsna, son of Nanda, I am stuck in this ocean of birth and death. Please save me and fix me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.”

******

The best thing is that you just pray to the holy name and hear the sound. The stage of thinking of Radha and Krsna and Their forms will come automatically. It cannot be so much forced. When the mind wanders, bring it back in a mood of prayer and supplication, thinking, “O holy name, I want to chant, I want to hear, I want to be engaged in Your service by chanting and hearing.” Then simply practice the mantra yoga of vibrating with the tongue and hearing with the ear.

******

Don’t make interpretations or imaginations on the holy name. As far as the love Krsnadasa Kaviraja speaks of in Caitanya¬caritamrta, that is the highest stage. We should aspire to that and make endeavor.

******

As far as controlling the mind, two senses engaged are sufficient. If we engage the process of hearing and the process of chanting with the tongue, then these two senses can capture the mind on the Hare Krsna mantra.

******

We have to invest more and more our thinking, feeling, and willing into our chanting, not thinking that we will surpass this chanting or that the chanting will lead to something different from chanting. I told this several times to one devotee who said he chanted sixty-four rounds on Janmastami. As he chanted he had this feeling that something was going to happen, that if he chanted enough, “it” was going to happen. But his conclusion at the end was that he was still a rascal, even after chanting sixty-four rounds. Another conclusion is that it’s not by chanting that “it” happens but “it” is happening while we chant. What we have to do is just invest more of our consciousness into it.

******

There is a pseudo-spiritual hippie impersonal philosophy that what’s really happening is whatever is happening now. It’s summed up in that phrase, “Be here now.” I had a friend who used to say, “As far as eternal, there’s no afterlife. But there is eternal—eternal means now, what’s happening now.” Actually that philosophy leads to hedonism—the moment, whatever is happening, is all there is, so you have to really get into it. And sometimes they try for spirituality that everything right now is holy, and this is what is transcendental. You just invest yourself, invest meaning into the temporary life, and that is religious. But that’s bogus because there is another life; there is Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, beyond this world. It’s not that this is all there is, so you have to invest everything here. We don’t subscribe to that philosophy. But we can take that mentality. We can apply it—”Be here now”—because we have got eternal transcendental life given to us in Krsna consciousness. The chanting is Krsna, so for us that is true, that everything is here. “Be here now”—Kona is actually here in His name. All you have to do is get into it or get with it, that this is Krsna’s name.

Excerpts From GN Press

From Srila Prabhupada Samadhi Diary

pp. 100-3

October 2, Prabhupada’s Room, 5:00 A.M .

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

My mind is my enemy, as the brahmana of Avanti-desa concluded. I come to you for relief. Your soft saffron, your kind look upon me, your youthfulness, your mercy. You sit behind your desk and chant on your beads. This is your last room on this earth. You preached all over the world and then came here to leave for the spiritual world.

That mind of mine, Srila Prabhupada, finds fault with Godbrothers, feels the tiredness of my body—my mind harasses me. He tells me I’m the best and then says, of course, that it’s not true. He stands alone and criticizes everyone and everything as superficial and flawed. What will we do with him? Why is he so insecure? At least I get relief when I see Radha-Syamasundara, Krsna-Balarama, and Gaura-Nitai.

In your last days, you spoke to your disciples about preaching and the basic philosophy of spirit versus matter. You spoke of Krsna’s will, which would determine whether you stayed in the world. You didn’t speak much about where you were going.

We can speculate on that next life or we can be in­tent about knowing our own places in the spiritual world, but I want to follow your example and preach in this world while regularly chanting and hearing of the name and nature of the Supreme Lord and His en­tourage as given in the Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrta.

By studying and preaching I can forget the petty concerns of my anxious mind. The mind will be engaged in higher topics. You want this, Srila Prabhupada. There is no good reason for faultfinding or the constant lamentation over superficiality. Simply go to Krsna’s name, fame, qualities, and pastimes. Simply preach on the order of the spiritual master.
The double bed is low. I remember crowding around it during your last hours. Srila Prabhupada said we have to die like human beings, like Bhismadeva. Think of Krsna at the end. Either serve actively as long as we can and retire at the very end or keep going until the last breath.

Where will we go? We may not know. But we will go.

Samadhi Mandir, 10 A.M.

It’s Saturday—sparrows chirping loudly, cinema songs, and more visitors than usual. One lady wears an Indian Airlines cabin luggage tag on her bag. Where are they coming from? So many people were outside we had to thread through them before we could enter. Their clothes are all according to their region, but I don’t know how to tell which comes from where.

Srila Prabhupada, your Samadhi Mandir is so full of life. The populace is streaming in and out your doors. An ISKCON brahmacari explains to an older man, may­be his father, who you are. The hired pigeon-chaser is active and noisy. One of the Indian pujaris is cleaning the altar in front of you. I just came from reading the cleansing of the Gundica temple pastime.

Imagine if we did that here. Now there are a few leaves on the floor and a puddle of water in a place where we want to bow down.

Our brahmacari is sweeping up the leaves and the puddle, cleaning his heart. He wears the Vaisnava tilaka clear and artistically in twelve places.

Now another large group enters. Today they are well-dressed, not villagers with worn-out clothes, but city folk—men in fashionable Western clothes, ladies in clean saris. Some remind you of Americans—blue jeans, caps with beaks, fat mammas.

The crowds move in and out like breathing. Some­times it’s quiet and empty and then it fills up with people. Srila Prabhupada draws them in and then lets them go, draws them in and then lets them go.

It would be nice if everyone had more to do with Srila Prabhupada and became his follower, chanting on japa-mala and reading his Bhagavad-gita As It Is. The Cen­tennial aims to increase public awareness of Srila Prabhupada, and I’ll try to do something too.

He himself says that people are not interested be­cause they are attached to sense gratification. Srila Prabhupada insists, “No illicit sex, no intoxication, no meat-eating, and no gambling. Chant Hare Krsna at least sixteen rounds.” For most people, even for a lord of England, this is “impossible.”

I look up and can’t even see Srila Prabhupada. A solid wall of visitors blocks my view. I wonder what they are thinking as they look up to him. I can’t help but feel it’s incomplete, the half a moment in which their minds and senses are arrested by the shiny golden murti and then they’re out the door again.

Out of thousands, only a few seek perfection. Out of those who achieve perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth. What is true for Sri Krsna is also true for His pure representative. Hardly one knows Srila Prabhupada in truth.

As I watch the visitors, I beg for more enthusiasm and depth. I don’t want padding or show-off phoniness in my own declarations of prabhupada-seva. I look for true affection and connection. It’s there, I simply have to uncover it. Just as the brahmacari is sweeping the floor with a broom, always attentive to keeping the place clears, so I want to be a serious, simple caretaker of the samadhi mandira that’s in my heart.

When I leave Vrndavana, I want to remember how we circumambulated his murti here. I want to feel the pull of this most sacred and relevant holy place. I’m a stran­ger everywhere else in Vrndavana. I am expected to give my rupees and keep moving. I’m not welcome. I don’t understand the people or the mood. The great acaryas in the past are unapproachable by me. They are so intense. But with Srila Prabhupada, I’m at home. I have no material home, so this is my home. He is my father. He knows me. He won’t forget me.

(Today I congratulated the brahmacari who was clean­ing the Mandir. He then told me that he’s part of a group who are tending to the Mandir for a period of four months. They’re all disciples of H.H. Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Maharaja. This one brahmacari and his friend are from Burma and a few of the others are from Manipur.)

From The Delaware Diaries, Volume 1

pp. 59-62

April 15, 7:38 P.M.

Caitanya Mahāprabhu continued traveling and visiting temples and deities. At Mallikārjuna tīrtha, He saw the deity of Lord Śiva and induced the people there to chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. He went to Ahovala, saw the Nṛsiṁha Deity and offered His prayers to the Lord there. Then He went to Siddhavaṭa, where He saw the Deity of Rāmacandra, the Lord of Sītādevi. At that place, a brāhmaṇa invited the Lord to take lunch. The brāhmaṇa constantly chanted the holy name of Rāmacandra and otherwise didn’t speak a word. The Lord then went to see the temple of Trivikrama and later went back to Siddhavata, where He again visited that brāhmaṇa who previously was chanting the name of Rāma. But this time He found the brāhmaṇa was constantly chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. Lord Caitanya asked him, “My dear friend, kindly tell me what’s your position now?” The brāhmaṇa said that since his childhood, he had always chanted the name of Lord Rāma. But now, due to the influence of Lord Caitanya, he’s lost his lifelong practice. Since seeing Lord Caitanya, the name of Kṛṣṇa has been tightly fixed on his tongue, and the name of Lord Rāmacandra has gone far away. He then quoted from the scriptures:

“‘The pious results derived from chanting a thousand holy names of Viṣṇu three times can be obtained by only one utterance of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa.

“‘According to this statement of the śāstras, the glories of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa are unlimited. Still I could not chant this holy name. Please hear the reason for this.

“‘My worshipable Lord has been Lord Rāmacandra, and by chanting His holy name I received happiness. Because I received such happiness, I chanted the holy name of Lord Rāma day and night.

“‘By Your appearance, Lord Kṛṣṇa’s holy name has also appeared, and at that time the glories of Kṛṣṇa’s name awoke in my heart.

“‘Sir, You are that Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself. This is my conclusion.’

“Saying this, the brāhmaṇa fell down at the lotus feet of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu” (Cc. Madhya-līlā, 9.33–37).

April 16, 5:35 P.M.

Walk on the boardwalk with my two comrades. They talk of Leibniz, Kierkegaard, Woody Allen, professional boxers, a recent book called Love’s Executioner, the pleasant weather. I’m mostly silent, and it’s difficult walking. No kṛṣṇa-kathā. A burly man comes by and sits in the gazebo with us. He says, “That was a long walk.” Then he lights up a Camel cigarette. We laugh ironically. He says smoking is good for your health. His father lived to a hundred and five and smoked every day. Nitāi-Gaurāṅga said his uncle died in his fifties from lung cancer and was a smoker.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says the Camel smoker. He’s from San Francisco, visiting here on a kind of holiday, but it’s boring, there’s nobody here.
“It’s the off-season,” says Nitāi.
“There is no off-season in San Francisco,” says the burly, friendly man.
We exchange a few pleasantries and then separate. “So long.” The waves come in.

Back at the house, I finish my sixteen rounds.

7:12 P.M.

Millions of people came to see Lord Caitanya because of His beauty and spiritual potency. Among them was a cult of Buddhists, who came to establish their own cult by argument. Vaiṣṇavas do not accept the truth based on logic and argument but by the truth of the revealed scriptures. But because preachers have to meet those who defend on logic and argument, the Vaiṣṇava preacher should also be able to defeat the nondevotees with strong, logical arguments. Lord Caitanya did this when He met the Buddhists on his southern tour. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura states that according to the Buddhists, there are ten principles of gaining knowledge. Lord Caitanya broke each and every one of those principles with strong arguments. The Buddhist philosophers felt both shame and fear. They became very unhappy, and they began to make a plot against Lord Caitanya. They took a plate of untouchable food and gave it to Him to eat as mahā-prasādam. Prabhupāda takes the opportunity to define what is actually prasādam. He says that sometimes preachers in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement have to accept food in a home where the householder is a non-Vaiṣṇava. But if the food is offered to the Deity, it can be taken. Ordinary food cooked by avaiṣṇavas should not be accepted by Vaiṣṇavas. “Even if an avaiṣṇava cooks food without fault, he cannot offer it to Lord Viṣṇu, and it cannot be accepted as mahā-prasādam.” Lord Kṛṣṇa says He accepts food that is offered to Him with love and devotion.

“Kṛṣṇa can accept anything that is offered by His devotee with devotion. An avaiṣṇava may be a vegetarian and a very clean cook, but because he cannot offer Viṣṇu the food he cooks, it cannot be accepted as mahā-prasādam. It is better that a Vaiṣṇava abandon such food as untouchable” (Cc. Madhya-līlā 9.53, purport).

When the untouchable food was offered to Lord Caitanya, a very large bird appeared, picked up the plate and flew away. The bird then dropped the plate on the Buddhists. The plate fell on the head of the eldest Buddhist, cutting his head with the edge. He became unconscious, and his disciples ran to the feet of Lord Caitanya begging that He forgive their spiritual master and bring him back to life. Lord Caitanya replied to the Buddhist disciples, “You should all chant the names of Kṛṣṇa and Hari very loudly near the ear of your spiritual master” (Cc. Madhya-līlā 9.59). When they did this, their spiritual master regained consciousness, and he also began to chant the holy name of Lord Hari. In actuality, they all became Vaiṣṇava devotees as a result of this chanting. But it was the disciples of the Buddhist guru who chanted. They chanted, and he responded, so they were his guru, and he was the disciple.

From Living With the Scriptures

pp. 45-49

My Godbrother Ghanasyama dasa brahmacari (later awarded the sannyasa title Bhakti Tirtha Swami by Srila Prabhupada) and I were members of a traveling team distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books at the universities. So as not to alarm professors and librarians–who had their own stereotyped idea of how book salesmen should appear–we wore business suits and grew long hair or wore wigs. One freezing winter day, Ghanasyama and I found ourselves walking across the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, wearing overcoats we had purchased for two dollars each at a charity store and carrying our heavy book valises. Just as we were about to part company and go knocking on professors’ doors, Ghanasyama turned to me and said, “Wow! Who would have imagined that spiritual life would be like this?” My Godbrother and I laughed together to find ourselves serving our spiritual master in a way we had never before dreamed of. The contrast between our salesperson’s appearance and our actual lives as brahmacaris, as well as the contrast between what we had previously conceived of as spiritual activity and our present, unusual roles, made us both laugh. And the humor was pleasantly sustained by our strong convictions that selling books in Srila Prabhupada’s service was genuine spiritual life, and that acting in this way liberates us from material desires.

In a similar way, many of Srila Prabhupada’s followers find themselves in situations which smash their previously held stereotyped ideas of religious life. Just to be a servant is something most of us never thought of as either spiritual or desirable. A servant, we thought, was a black slave in the pre-Civil War days of America, or a hired valet or traditionally dressed butler as might appear in the Hollywood movies. Who could imagine that being a servant of God–and not even a direct servant but a servant of the servant of the servant of God, one hundred times removed–is actually the highest spiritual position?

Before meeting with Krishna consciousness, some of us may have thought that spiritual life must be dry or even boring, and meant fasting of observing vows of silence. If so, we were pleasantly surprised to find that it is filled with festivals and chanting Hare Krishna in ecstatic, dancing congregations, and feasting on sumptuously cooked prasadam. And upon reading Srila Prabhupada’s books, we may have been surprised to find not dry, intellectual wrangling but the delightful pastimes of the Supreme Lord and His associates. The childhood pastimes of Krishna in Vrndavana are very playful and charming, and Lord Caitanya’s pastimes are sometimes humorous, as when His devotees engage in joking or when they play at water sports. And Lord Caitanya’s dealings with His devotees are always loving. Srila Rupa Goswami encourages the devotees to engage in exchanges of love with each other by sharing and accepting gifts, by giving and accepting prasadam, by revealing their minds intimately, and by hearing the personal revelations of others. Spiritual theater, art, and music, as well as opportunities for wide travel, makes for a busy, active life.

The real conclusion of this phenomenon–and it is a triumphant one experienced by every devotee–it that despite the seemingly unusual activities which the Krishna consciousness devotee may occasionally take on in this world, Krishna consciousness is actually liberation from all material affairs. But even if we grant that Krishna conscious devotee is acting on the liberated platform, a big question remains: What do we mean by liberation?

Ultimately, liberation is not the goal of spiritual life, but it is an automatic byproduct of devotional service. As stated by the Vaisnava saint Srila Bilvamaìgala, “If I have unflinching devotion unto the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord, then mukti, or liberation, serves me as my maidservant.” A pure devotee serves the Supreme without any motive; he does not serve the Lord with the motive of some material return or even with the hope that by serving he will become liberated. As Lord Caitanya writes in His Siksastaka prayers,

O almighty Lord, I have no desire for accumulating wealth, nor have I any desire to enjoy beautiful women; neither do I want numbers of followers. What I only want is that I may have Your causeless devotional service in my life, birth after birth. (Siksastaka 4)

Out of humility, the pure devotee does not think himself fit for liberation. He is willing to be born again in the material world, and his only request is that he be allowed to associate with pure devotees and not forget his beloved, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Although he does not serve for the purpose of going back to Godhead, the pure devotee’s mind and activities are so pleasing to Krishna that He brings His pure servant to Him for eternal association in the spiritual world.

Although the devotee’s services to the spiritual master are multifarious and easily award one liberation, they sometimes bring the devotee into direct conflict with the material world. These occasions provide tests of one’s sincerity and trust in Krishna consciousness. It is one thing to enjoy the liberated status of devotional service when one’s activities provide humorous contrasts to stereotyped ways of life. But when the execution of one’s spiritual duties seems to bring one only trouble, the tendency is to have second thoughts and in a different mood ask oneself, “Is this what I came to spiritual life for?”

Once while I was distributing books on a street in Tucson, Arizona, a storeowner assaulted me and broke my sannyasa rod over my head and shoulders. And once while singing in a kirtana at the Boston Commons, a thrown bottle hit me in the head. Many devotees have gone to jail for the offense of chanting Hare Krishna in public places. While living peacefully in their temples and ashrams, devotees have been shot at and bombed. The news media regularly blasphemes and abuses the Krishna consciousness movement, and if a devotee decides to dedicate his or her life to Krishna consciousness, there is a good chance that he or she will be rejected by family, friends, and society.

Aside from tolerating the negative attitudes, a devotee must be responsible to push on the mission of Krishna consciousness in a revolutionary spirit. The Krishna consciousness movement is not quietism or mere armchair speculation. It is war against maya. Thus we can understand that liberation does not mean that one simply meditates “I am eternal” and does nothing. In the Krishna consciousness movement, seemingly material duties are undertaken not for anyone’s personal gratification but for the purpose of pleasing Krishna. One who willingly undertakes and who does not resent the headaches and entanglements which may result from practical devotional service in this world, becomes very dear to Krishna and enters into an intimate relationship with Krishna in the spiritual world.

In an earlier essay, we quoted Prabhupada’s aphorism “Deserve and then desire.” One cannot enter into his relationship with Krishna and the gopis simply by desiring, but one has to deserve this by the good credits of service unto the spiritual master. Therefore a devotee should never feel sorry if his devotional service leads him into many difficulties and burdens. One should be assured that these burdens are qualifying him and training him to become the eternal associate of Krishna. The more burden and responsibility one is willing to take for Krishna, the more dear he becomes to the Lord.

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. 241-44

PRABHUPADA IS WRITING AGAIN

1.

He wasn’t writing much.
Sometimes weeks went by,
only a few digits each morning.
Demanding work had prevented him:
managing Bombay temple construction,
training us up in Vrndavana,
healing an ISKCON schism in Mayapur,
or worrying.
A conspiracy was working itself out
of his spiritual movement.
Was a trusted disciple in trouble?
Or it might be his personal health.
But diminishing in his writing
shouldn’t be, it was wrong,
it was like dying.
Sincere disciples had to right it,
find a place where he could go,
like Hawaii, peaceful, where
sometimes he had done
hundreds of digits per day.
He agreed, and even mentioned
Aurobindo’s practice of seeing people
only one day a year.
Just think, Prabhupada constantly writing—
at least for some time!
So he went, with a determined, trained group,
servant, editor, typist, cook,
and an attitude—
to concentrate on Srimad-Bhagavatam,
now in the Seventh Canto.

2.

We loved to see him at writing,
knew it wasn’t ordinary work,
went best when there were no door slams
(knew also not to demand him
to produce as if it were factory labor).
But we waited outside the door,
eager to see early morning results,
carrying out the tape to be typed,
good news for the world.
We had seen him
sometimes through a keyhole,
the microphone in hand,
pausing a second, then speaking,
head moving for emphasis,
his private audience with Krishna. And yet
he was addressing everyone for thousands of years
—and all-scholarly! Vaishnava-siddhanta!
Deep in the universe of eternal Sanskrit,
twelve commentators from different centuries
rushing together just as sages all came
to the meeting of Pariksit and Sukadeva.
Now they flew to join the Bhaktivedanta purports,
combined meeting of minds, speakers, hearers,
descending from spiritual planets,
to the clean, quiet room and desk of Prabhupada,
to the lips, the mouth, the gestured words,
the clicking off and on of the “pause” button.
We saw the externals, knew it was eternal
but could only wonder
at the extent of the intimacy
—Prabhupada, Krishna, and the acaryas.

3.

We could not even explain our own
inconceivable pleasure.
He had said it was his most
important service to his Guru Maharaj,
so for us also, it was like a benediction moon,
better than money, fame, women,
better than sports, politics, business.
It was extended, full kirtana,
singing and dancing,
the perfection of our family love,
and the most serious preaching to the world.
And, in Hawaii,
he immediately increased
to 200-300 digits a day.
One night he shut his door
at nine P.M. and stayed up all night,
finishing the Seventh Canto
“completed in the temple of the Panchatattwa
by the mercy of Sri Krishna Chaitanya . . .”
On Waikiki Beach one morning,
his servant exclaimed joy
that Prabhupada was working so fast.
“Oh, I can finish very quickly,”
Prabhupada said, “but I have to present it
for their understanding. It requires
deep thought. very carefully,
to present it for the common man.”

4.

And who was that common man?
It is me, and you, and everyone.
The big scholar is a common man—
he knows nothing of Krishna—
and Prabhupada made sure to give him
Krishna many times on every page.
The intellectuals, world-leaders,
youth-in-search, future generations, black, white, yellow races, all are common men, kirata-hunandhra-pulinda-pulkasa, because wherever you go, you find no one knows Krishna unless he has read these books. Common men become rare souls, led by his purports into comprehension—Krishna is the Supreme.
He knew these books were like gold.
They are also very grave, he said,
not everyone can understand,
but more than ever before
he was making it possible,
and as soon as he would write it,
it would be rushed—but carefully—
into print, and rushed,
sometimes not so carefully—
into the hands of conditioned souls.
Even Jagai and Madhai could be saved
at least by the touch,
and if he could read a single page . . .

Devanagari script, romanized spelling,
word-for-word synonyms, English text,
elaborate purport,
what he had begun in India in 1960
became his life’s method,
a complete tradition unto itself.
Were we pleased to be there
when he produced them,
or are we pleased to hear of it now?
Are we pleased to hear how they were sold?
But now we have to do it,
read them and distribute.
That is a life’s work also
for whoever is his follower.
The reading—every day—
is the best way to remember him.
He said so—to hear him
resonant in your mind and thinking,
creates faith anew,
builds strong the fibers of conviction,
or as he said, “protects us against
the onslaught of the atheist.”
We will see Krishna in Srimad-Bhagavatam
and know He is everywhere, always with us.
The careful reading daily
will also put us transcendental
to the constant tricks of fate and illusion
that try to plague us and harass us.
We will be safe and sound,
even in calamity,
when we remember Krishna
in the pages of the Bhagwat-book
from the purports of the Bhagwat-person,
and from that regular reading,
we will go back to Godhead.
The distribution—also every day
the best engagement for a devotee,
and Krishna says he is the best servant.
The honesty of living obedient—
“That you have received this knowledge
is not enough; you must
distribute it to others.”
How? Where?
Wherever people are,
for sale or gift,
by persuasion, or by mail,
to the passing crowds,
to people in their homes,
in classrooms—or if you know
a better way, then do it,
figure it out, but give them out.
And when you see someone reading,
who before knew nothing
and when later you see him
becoming a Krishnaite,
then you know, this is the potency.
This is why Prabhupada
stayed up all night,
and why we were so happy
to be with him
as he produced his priceless books.

From Back to Godhead Essays, Volume 1

pp. 286-92

Liberation at Last

Recently I spoke to an acquaintance who is practicing “meditation” and I asked him the goal of his practice. The answer was, “liberation. To merge with the one.” Expressions such as “annihilation of the ego” and “merging with the Supreme” are commonly passed back and forth in this age of the widely attended Yoga and meditation class. Regarding liberation, one significant question is, “What is liberation?” And also, we want to know—what are the chances of a person actually gaining liberation? For answers, we best go to the source of the very concept of liberation and the place where all its techniques are elaborately and carefully taught; that is, the scriptural literature of India, called the Vedas. Yoga technique and meditation are given in gist in the Bhagavad-gita, spoken by Lord Krsna, the Personality of Godhead, and expounded further in the Srimad-Bhagavatam which is considered the postgraduate study of the Bhagavad-gita.

Liberation generally refers to freedom from the bodily concept of life. But unless there is positive, non-bodily activity or spiritual activity, then liberation is a merely theoretical, lip-service liberation. To sit in a posture of meditation and think, “I am moving the moon, I am moving the sun, I am moving the stars,” and then 10 minutes later to be dictated to by the tongue—“I must have a cigarette”—is not liberation; nor at the time of death can such a “yogi” be expected to be liberated to the spiritual sky. Without practical devotional service to Krsna, Giver of Liberation, the idea of liberation is just a negative concept of material life. The Vedic literature describes four material categories of civilized life, and liberation is among them. The first is religiousness. This means to perform sacrifice, churchgoing or pious acts with the aim of being rewarded by promotion to a heavenly material planet. The aim behind such acts is personal gratification; by being religious I will be rewarded. It is noted by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that nowadays the church, mosque or temple is an empty place because the people believe that they can get their desired economic ends without making prayers to God. Therefore, the second material activity of civilized persons is economic development—building, making money, doing business. The third activity is sense gratification culminating in sex life. In fact, sex life is the essential background for the first two material activities. The fourth, mukti or liberation, is a little different, although it is a material activity. After being frustrated by all the material activities and seeing that either failure or success are really failure due to the disadvantages of birth, death, disease and old age, a person desires liberation. He desires to become one with the Supreme. He is too bitter with all his experiences to be happy in material life. But in itself this is only a negative concept. By such liberation he thinks he wants to lose the individuality which has caused him so much pain, and instead, to merge with the oneness of spiritual existence.

The background for understanding liberation starts with gaining true identity of the self. In the beginning stages it expresses itself in the desire to be one with the Spirit. This is called Brahman realization. If someone is actually realized in Brahman that is a great thing. It is called brahma-bhuta stage, and it is characterized by joyfulness. The joyfulness is due to understanding that, “I am not this body.” This is carefully described by Lord Krsna in the Second Chapter of the Bhagavad-gita. The living entity is there declared to be spirit-soul, or Brahman. In the Third Chapter Lord Krsna reveals that for full realization of Brahman, you have to work in Brahman. Bhagavad-gita (3.5) says, “Nobody can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment.” And in his Purport to that verse, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami writes, “This is not a question of embodied life; it is the nature of the soul to be always active. The proof is that without the presence of the spiritual soul there is no movement of the material body. The body is only a dead vehicle to be worked by the spirit soul and therefore it is the nature of the soul itself to be always active, and cannot stop even for a moment. The spirit soul has to be engaged in the good work of Krsna consciousness, otherwise it will be engaged in occupations dictated by the illusory energy.” When one realizes “I am Brahman,” that means he has no death, just like Krsna, the Supreme Brahman. This is a joyful position, “I am not this perishable body, that is not my self, I am spirit soul.” That is all well and good, but then, what do I do? It is not that the liberated state is without activities. This question was asked by Sanatana Gosvami, the learned disciple of Lord Caitanya: “You have said that I am already liberated, now what are my duties in the liberated state?” The impersonalists, however, do not like to take up the devotional service path; they are simply desirous of merging into the One, described as the brahmajyoti effulgence. That destination is explained in the Gita. Brahmajyoti is not material, it is the spiritual effulgence coming from the Body of Sri Krsna; it is eternal spiritual light. This light illumines the spiritual world and the naturally dark material world is lit by its reflection. And to merge in this light is the goal of the impersonal liberation. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, who is a fully realized devotee of the Personality of Godhead, states the disadvantages of aiming at the brahmajyoti as the topmost goal:

In the brahmajyoti the spirit souls on account of their impersonal views are devoid of a body, exactly as here in maya there are ghosts who are devoid of any gross bodies. The ghost, being devoid of a body, … suffers terribly because he is unable to satisfy his senses. The spirit souls in the brahmajyoti, although they have no desire for sense gratification, … feel inconvenience like the ghost; and they fall down again in … maya’s atmosphere and develop a material body. In the Bhagavatam therefore it is said that persons who are impersonalists and do not develop the dormant devotional attitude, their intelligence is not pure; because for want of a spiritual body, they come down again to the material world. In the Bhagavad-gita it is clearly said by the Lord that the only way of not coming back to the material world is to be promoted to the spiritual planets. For the impersonalists there is no such assurance of not falling down in the whole Vedic literature. The conclusion is that without developing the spiritual body and without being situated on one of the spiritual planets, the so-called liberation is also illusion, or it is not complete. A spirit-soul who falls down from the brahmajyoti to the Kingdom of maya may have a chance of associating with a pure devotee, and then he may be elevated to the spiritual planets of Vaikuntha or to the Goloka Vrndavana. From the brahmajyoti there is no direct promotion to the spiritual planets …

—Letter to Rupanuga, July 24, 1969

(Back to Godhead, Vol. 1 #32 (January/February 1970)

From Seeking New Land

pp. 95-99

Go ahead, go ahead, tell something to help people. Expose gently the inhuman situation in their religion and the lack of prayer in thy own heart. Ask, why do we have to rush through those japas?
Exposed, thy own heart – I cannot do much practical beyond these arts. When a man needed a plain rope to pull one car by another car, I could do nothing. Let me (here we go, reaching for the metaphor) provide the rope here then. The thick braided one that pulls you children out of the well. A rope on demand.

“Yes, I have one. Take, take it. Pull all your people out.” I am not a useless person in a skirt. I have what you need. You are like a demigod come to my door disguised as a beggar. You are God in need and I do not fail you.

Expose your failures. Be sorry. Get ready for the next test, study how to do better. It’s in science that one’s son didn’t do well and his family was concerned because it was the important subject. Couldn’t he maybe major in English?

Is there a place for just
singing, singers?

Transfer this embarrassment and shame into something you can do. And don’t’ blame Melodeon, he has his own troubles. Don’t blame Hemanta, Eire or even yourself. (But I perhaps blame the U.S.A. to some extent.) And Lewis Carrol, his excellent book.

He knows he doesn’t have far
to go, he and his chats
people like.

Here is the day after a storm,
heavy debris. Tuneful you are
still alive. Before night
comes you’ll get your car
out of the flood,

you’ll find a warm place to eat
and drink and bed down. As
for me I won’t even leave this
place

But maybe I should
simple melodies you
did forget

can’t make light of
another’s sufferings
with useless commiserations.

Then turn to the suffering of
the world (ex-welfare

worker) and in your own japa-
mala hold in your hands

Get off the false self and
its mind and intelligence
as taught in Sankhya

get onto Lord Caitanya’s
new generation my
timed books

get free of dross and petty
remorses – that guy’s already
well on his way…

Oh mind I ask once again
could you please…

would you please… hear the
Hare Krishna name. No one
is here to say, “Cult!” or
tease you, berate your
prayer, your failure…

Snuffy Smith.

In a dream, Srila Prabhupada was on a walk with followers. I ran real fast to catch up! By that time he’s paused to go somewhere. I made a public speech but he wasn’t present to hear it. Then he returned to the group and the walk continued and then back at the house, some men, not me, went inside for attention. Do you want it? Then get right.

Krishna and guru are ready to give. You have to ask for it.

Snuffy and Hermanta built their fire on the cliffs and they got out their book, Srimad-Bhagavatam. The Kumaras were still teaching Prthu Maharaja. They gave the example of rivers and compared them to uncontrollable sense desires. Best thing in such a situation is to ride on the stronger current of bhakti which is like the sea that overwhelms the rivers. Somehow or other, material desires have to be stopped.
Good to hear from that book. Hope they don’t get kicked off the hill. They found a little cove where they are reciting Srimad-Bhagavatam by the sunlight and they hope the recitation would bless the inhabitants, not only of Surtsey, but the whole world.

I.

Find some place deep
within at least where you care
you know the feeling factor
but don’t be misled.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

stops your breath
and you cannot even think
oh he struggled to

stay awake but t’was
to no avail. Oh how he
sought to tell the windy
hill a tale

of his making or even stolen
(as Shakespeare did) but
couldn’t find one.

II.

They were happy in
some artistic studio or
wild free jazz loft in
1960s when I was
subdued by the Swami

sweating in the kirtanas
with hands up and
saved attitude.

Evangelists on Lower East
Side distributing Back to Godhead and
incense to the head
shops.

The Sharp brothers…
send me to Boston I
gravitate to that story

III.

And here on the crater-
like moon…Boy the air
is fresh here and
Krishna is in the natural
elements raw…

Take my sandwich… I
have nothing to say to
you. But the author will
answer a few
letters at length

explain to a pal just
authorji slipped
from midnight rising
and lost all toehold
of reading Srimad-Bhagavatam
one thing after another

tell them, encourage the
student in the university
and the old woman with
the mending bones, a
little blarney jive from
my position

as if we didn’t have
to slide all the way
downhill.

You don’t give the time of day to anyone. Don’t tell your secrets. People should be kind, tells a storyteller. A man never hit his horse and so she was always faithful to him. But one day in a race he hit her and she won the race but kept running and jumped off a cliff killing herself and breaking the man’s thigh.

So what? Where is Krishna? He is everywhere, in every grain and flower. Raindrop.

Most of the time Madha-
vendra Puri is reaching
out to accept the bowl of
ksira

but I don’t notice it.
Mostly I think about
Vrndavana and don’t
go there,

return to pumping out another
letter. “What about after
you die?” he asked. I
said I have no plans.

What about all these
pictures of Radha-Krishna
and varied subjects

Do with them…Why
don’t you attain prema
as soon as possible?

I answered by saying I was
doing what I could,
keeping the body alive
with physical exercise and
pills and daily food and air
—so you can
live.

Hemanta Swami got a response from his letters to devotees in Scandinavia. Two brahmacaris joined him from Denmark, and a householder couple came from Sweden. The brahmacaris went out on book distribution, selling Prabhupada’s books to passersby. They gave a percentage of their collection to Hemanta to help pay his rent, and they squeezed in at HS’s house. On Saturdays, the devotees and the Green House students went out on harinama sankirtana in public, and the police left them alone. The harinamers tasted bliss as they sang and danced while some curious Greenlanders looked on.

from The Best of a Bad Bargain

pp. 23-26

The Nature Path Yoga Institute

A Godsister sent a statement from an herbal book that nourishment (good health practices and attitude) means to add onto your life. Pain and disease may appear as truth in life, so in health practice, we should not seek a fix, cure, or even balance. Rather, we should just gain the stamina to accept with grace the pains life sends.

The doctor is bald in front and has long hair in back. He’s also very thin, as is not unusual with Indians.

******

I wonder what this writing will become and how it will serve. I had a dream last night that a blues singer made a song out of his sorrowful remembrance of a dead friend. Someone recorded the song and then we all had it and could sing the lyrics and melody. The blues singer tried composing many songs, but none of them came up to the high level of that most inspired occasion. This dream seems to represent a view of expression in art. I tend to favor thinking that many occasions, all occasions are worth writing about and are memorable. If we strive to capture only the very best, we will end up with many continued attempts and preconceptions of the “best art,” as if we were looking for universal symbols or something so big that it was capable of making that just right expression. I try to go beyond that and leave a trail of many good songs.

******

They have their own ways here. We’re going to try and follow it all, including their morning prayer schedule, the enema, whatever. If we find that some of it is too much for us, we may drop some of it. I do want to do the detoxification program though. Just give me time enough to write my songs and to read the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. I don’t want to forget these projects while I’m working on my health. I need the strength to write and read not only in the future, but now. However, working to gain strength can be just as stressful as not having the strength.

This may mean I learn to write whenever I can. I’m also aware that I don’t want the writing to merely record health data. It should discuss the attempt to see Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Leap from the nature path clinic to the Akash Ganga. It doesn’t always have to make sense.

******

We are not among devotees here. No “Rādhe-Śyāma!” here. We’ll need to keep in touch with the integrity of Kṛṣṇa conscious sacred texts, the holy name, and the object of our worship—the purpose of life, Lord Caitanya and Śrīla Prabhupāda.

This fallen old devotee
of Prabhupāda
celā of the Swami
wants to gain strength
to fight the battles
with māyā.

******

1:55 P.M.

Flies, mosquitoes—we have both.

We also have servants who don’t knock on the door, but just open it and come in. The only way to keep them out is to lock the door. It’s awkward to accept service from someone who is only doing their job—no love involved—but if you refuse them, they’d be out of a job. One comes in with our papaya on a covered plate. Another brings water bottles. Today I met the sweeper who cleans my toilet.

The doctor is good at yoga. He chants oṁ during āsanas. Madhu and I hope we can improve our health so we can serve Kṛṣṇa and Śrīla Prabhupāda better. There’s a Śrīla Prabhupāda Centennial sticker in my room—put here by a previous occupant.

We have words too. And books to read, especially Caitanya-caritāmṛta. It refreshes my spirit. He taught beyond stereotypes.

There’s no desk to write on here. I use a legal pad folder on my knee. The ink sinks in anyway.

Maybe while I’m here, new ways of thinking will come. I’ll be sitting in the steam bath and—who knows? Maybe an idea of how to survive in spiritual life, how to see ISKCON kindly, something, will occur to me.

******

Prabhupāda, be kind to us. Give us service to Kṛṣṇa. At airport, a group gathered sitting around a large photo of Satya Sai Baba. They were greeting all those who came off the plane. I stared at the photo, but didn’t look at his followers. He had a mop of hair and sat casually. One has to be careful not to commit offense, but neither can we accept bogus incarnations or those who blaspheme Lord Caitanya and Lord Kṛṣṇa.

******

I am just here, you see,
to better myself with
mud packs. I heard they
might stimulate the veins’
ability to contract and expand
and maybe standoff that spastic
motor disability.
I heard that
Kṛṣṇa is kind to all His
devotees, but the internal
are the best and sometimes one
may promote oneself to
that level by His grace.

******

Man, you gotta get used to brushing away flies. If you were a cow, there would be no end to it. Of course, your consciousness would be duller.

One could say any ISKCON temple
is a clinic for the soul,
for intensive development of bhakti,
but why don’t we feel that way?
Temples are work and politics and
pressure and rituals, and long
lectures in the morning and
people often bored or not
liking each other.
They haven’t solved basic problems
such as how to make money
or sort out psychological disorders—
yet we are striving for the highest
spiritual ethic and ecstasy.
“It’s a madhouse,” said one
GBC guru. His friend
replied, “And you are one of
the leaders of the madhouse.”

******

Kṛṣṇa-darpaṇam. Hand moving. Truth. Juices. Ether in stomach. Cold water bath (I didn’t like that much). Prefer a snack, a snap (rest), and a volcano of words, and to say my Hare Kṛṣṇa mantras in a prayerfully attentive way.

In a place like this, with so much emphasis on the body, you have to bring your own bhakti program and practice it. Nourish your Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It’s up to you to draw yourself close to the fire in the heart just as someone who has been out in the cold draws near the fireplace. The fire of bhakti is kindled by the holy names. Try for it.

******

The health clinic routine is busy. I’m never sure when I’ll get time to write. I need at least 10–15 minutes without interruption to do a writing session, preferably half an hour. Therefore, when I get less, but still manage to scratch down a few lines, I’ll collect them at the end of the day into notes.

******

I am reluctant to discuss too explicitly what’s going on here. My yogi pants don’t fit well—legs too short and waist too big. I pray t0hat Lord Caitanya may not be offended by my being here. They placed Śrīla Prabhupāda’s picture on their altar in the prayer hall—he’s the only guru there—because ISKCON provides occasional clientele.

– Newsletter join link –

<< Free Write Journal #392

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

Read more »

The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

Read more »

Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

Read more »

Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

Read more »

Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

Read more »

Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

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The post Free Write Journal #393 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook
2. Vaisnava Behavior
3. A Trip to Spain
4. A Poor Man Reads the Bhagavatam
5. Churning the Milk Ocean
6. Human at Best
7. Sanatorium

ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 5)

REFLECTIONS/JAPA MEDITATIONS

The main thing is to fix your mind on the sound of the chanting. As you strain and yearn to keep your attention fixed, this naturally brings a mood of devotion. This is the way you serve the holy name. Just as when cooking, if you try very hard not to burn the preparation, to spice it nicely, and to keep it cooking nicely, then you express your devotion in this way. You may think separately from the cooking, “Please, Krsna, accept this nice preparation I am cooking for You.” But the main devotion is in cooking it nicely for Krsna. So you have to actually chant nicely, and as you concentrate on it this is the best meditation. In later stages spontaneous thoughts of Krsna will come. But you simply keep your mind fixed on hearing the holy name.

******

You must be attentive and control your mind. Don’t chant unconsciously. That implies that you have an intellectual conception of chanting: “I just can’t get into it. It’s not important.” Sometimes people will read directions how to operate something, but they have so many other responsibilities that they just can’t pay attention to the directions. It doesn’t mean anything to them. It’s not important to them. They may say, “Somebody else can do it. I can’t concentrate on it. It’s just too trivial.” So don’t minimize the holy name in the back of your mind. It’s absurd if you cannot actually accept that you’re supposed to use your best intelligence to concentrate on the repetition of the holy name.

******

If you have an eight-track mind that disturbs you when you are chanting Hare Krsna, the only remedy is to put Krsna on all the eight tracks. Krsna says in the Gita, wherever the mind goes you have to bring it back under the control of the higher self. Be conscientious.

******

To say “I tried hard—I almost made it” is not perfection. If you chant with offenses, then your chanting will be offensive. Still, that doesn’t mean that you stop the chanting or stop the preaching. We should be encouraged just by our trying even though imperfect. Just go on. Maybe we won’t attain Krsna for some time by our devotional service, but we have to keep trying—being satisfied by the japa and the nectar we obtain by that trying. The higher stage of chanting is love, and at that point there is no more trying. It is spontaneous.

******

But not that the best chanter of the names of Krsna has developed his chanting like some great weightlifter. “Oh, he is a very famous chanter. He tried day after day for many years, and now he has perfected his chanting. He can control his mind!” I remember talking to one professor practicing Buddhist meditation. He was explaining how to keep all different thoughts out of the mind. When some thought enters like an intruder, then with great prowess you push it out; when another thought enters you push that thought out. In this way you meditate—very strenuously. We may think, “Now I’m avoiding the first offense, now I’m avoiding the second offense, now I’m avoiding all ten offenses —I’m awake, I’m attentive,” etc. But we are not like the juggler who puts another spinning plate on top, then another, then another, and then he is perfect. In other words, the holy name is Krsna, who when fully pleased appears on the tongue of an ideal chanter. He is not created by the chanter.

******

Ultimately only loving service pleases Him, and that is done by linking with one who is already known to Krsna. Of course, Krsna knows everyone, but in terms of devotional service it is different. I may say I have been a big rascal and now I am letting out a great crying of love, “O Krsna! O Krsna! Krsna!” He’ll say “Oh? Who is this with all these protestations of love for Me? Who is this upstart?” But, if He is informed by one of His intimate associates like Radharani, “This person chanting is actually a very good devotee. I recommend him,” then He will say “Oh, then all right.” He won’t take you without a recommendation; this is mercy.

******

Our trying to chant nicely is satisfying to Krsna, and He responds; but ultimately it is not just by our hard endeavor that He does so. In the Bhagavatam Prahlada tells his father, “You cannot know Krsna by the practice of austerities or sannyasa regulations or grhastha regulations.” And he mentions severe examples like going into the river up to your neck on a cold day. It is not that we can finally try so hard to chant our japa that we beat down the holy name into submission—”Now I’ve got you under my foot!” No, you have to cry for Krsna! And the chanter must be avoiding offenses in his service. Krsna will be attracted not just by hard endeavor but by rubbing yourself in the dust of the lotus feet of the pure devotees.

Excerpts From GN Press

From The Twenty-Six Qualities of a Devotee/ Vaisnava Behavior

pp. 93-96

A devotee is truthful, satya-sara

To be truthful you first have to know the truth. Being truthful is not just a matter of refraining from telling lies. There is a legend that young George Washington was very truthful because he admitted, “I cannot tell a lie; it was I who cut down the cherry tree.” But that is not truthful. Young George was candid in honestly admitting that he did a stupid thing. Real truthfulness, however, begins when one knows the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Absolute Truth:

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth

—Bg. 4.34

The Absolute Truth is Krsna, as He is described in the first verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam:

O my Lord, Sri Krsna, son of Vasudeva, 0 all-pervading Personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. I meditate upon Lord Sri Krsna because He is the Absolute Truth and the primeval cause of all cause of the creation, sustenance and destruction of the manifested universes. He is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent because there is no other cause beyond Him. It is He only who first imparted the Vedic knowledge unto the heart of Brahmaji, the original living being. By Him even the great sages and demigods are placed into illusion, as one is bewildered by the illusory representations of water seen in fire, or land seen on water. Only because of Him do the material universes, temporarily manifested by the reactions of the three modes of nature, appear factual, although they are unreal. I therefore meditate upon Him, Lord Sri Krsna, who is eternally existent in the transcendental abode, which is forever free from the illusory representations of the material world. I meditate upon Him, for He is the Absolute Truth.

—Bhag. 1.1.1

One can study this verse for his entire lifetime to appreciate how Krsna is the Absolute Truth. In his Introduction to Srimad-Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada takes the phrase param satyam from this verse and translates it “the Absolute Truth.” He then defines param satyam as “the ultimate source of all energies.” In other words, the Absolute Truth is the cause of all causes, and Srimad-Bhagavatam, in the first verse, has hit the target of the Absolute Truth by defining Him in His personal feature as the Supreme God. God is a personal term to describe the controller. There are many gods, or controllers, but when we speak of the Supreme Godhead, then we mean Krsna, the cause of all causes.

So the Absolute Truth as the Supreme Person, Sri Krsna, is revealed in Srimad-Bhagavatam’s opening verse. In fact, the entire Vedic literature is proclaiming Krsna as the Absolute Truth. This is also stated in Bhagavad-gita [10.8], aham sarvasya prabhavah — the Absolute Truth is that from which everything else emanates. Since there are countless living beings coming from the Absolute Truth, the Absolute Truth must also contain personality. Elsewhere in Srimad-Bhagavatam, the author, Srila Vyasadeva, describes that the highest feature of the Absolute Truth is Bhagavan, the Supreme Person.

Atheistic philosophers deny Krsna as the Absolute Truth and even deny Him as a historical person. They also deny the existence of the spirit soul and reject the concept of a personal God. Yet despite their evolution¬ary theories, speculations about life coming from chemicals, and wild theories about creation, they are unable to explain the origin of existence. The question vital for every human being—”What is the meaning of existence? Where have I come from? What is the mission of life beyond animal survival? What is after death?”—cannot be reduced to chemical and biological theories. The answers to these questions lie in the realm of philosophy. But philosophy without religion is dry speculation, whereas religion without philosophy is merely sentiment. Srimad-Bhagavatam’s presentation of Lord Krsna as the Supreme Truth, however, satisfies the criteria of both perfect philosophy and perfect religion. The perfect philosophy is Vedanta, wherein the cause of all causes is explained with logic and reasoning, and the perfect religious practice is bhakti-yoga, or devotional service to the Supreme Lord.

Persons seeking the Absolute Truth, who are dissatisfied with material sense gratification and mental speculation, must approach the genuine authorities in disciplic succession. Even if a person wants to learn a mundane skill, he has to learn from authorities. In the philosophic search for truth there are many contesting philosophers, all speculating on the mental level. But the only possible way to reach transcendence is the path of the acaryas, the recognized saintly philosophers who have themselves realized the Absolute Truth through the process of disciplic succession. The words of Vedic authorities like Sukadeva Gosvami, Srila Vyasadeva, and others, and the evidence of their personal spiritual attainment, are sufficient to convince a sincere inquirer.

Once we recognize that Krsna is the Absolute Truth, there is an obligation to distribute this truth widely and thus combat falsity. Most people blindly try to deny the fact that everything in this universe is owned and con¬trolled by the Supreme Lord. Only if civilized human¬ity recognizes the proprietorship of God can there be peace and prosperity in the world. For want of this most basic knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the proprietor, men violate the laws of God and nature, incurring great karmic suffering.

Knowledge of the truth makes us free. The concept of the body as the self is false, as anyone who witnesses the death of a dear one can testify. We see our friend, relative or pet is gone, and yet the body remains. The body, therefore, is not the self but the vehicle that car¬ries the self, just as a car carries the driver. The real self is the eternal spirit soul. Life in the material world, suf¬fering the changes of birth, death, disease, and old age, is not the true, constitutional situation of the self. We are meant for the eternal, spiritual world. The spiritual world is true, and only due to a false notion of the self (false ego) are the living entities imprisoned in the material world birth after birth. Distribution of the knowledge of Krsna consciousness is meant to free the soul from his bondage to material life.

From A Trip to Spain 1994

pp. 121-23

Who will go: the Visiting Sannyasi and Narahari, who will drive fast.

Why are they going? To preach the glories of Lord Krsna as ordered by Srila Prabhupada.

Will this take place on a high level? That depends on how much the Supreme Lord is willing to appear in my words. This is described by Srila Prabhupada in his purports to the narration of Dhruva Maharaja:

“Devotees are always interested in hearing about the Lord’s transcendental qualities, and they’re always eager to glorify these qualities, but sometimes they feel inconvenienced by humbleness. The Personality of Godhead, being situated in everyone’s heart, specifically gives a devotee intelligence to describe Him. It is therefore understood that when a devotee write or speaks about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, his words are dictated by the Lord within” (Bg. 9.4, purport).

Are you feeling inconvenienced by humbleness?

Unfortunately I’m inconvenienced by various anarthas. Therefore I admit that this story is going to be more what happened to some conditioned souls trying to practice vaidhi-bhakti and sannyasa-dharma in ISKCON in 1994, rather than a story of full glorification with the Supreme Lord in the center.

They are scheduled to leave their place near Brescia. They will leave on April 20, which is the appearance day of Lord Ramacandra, at five in the morning. If Lord Ramacandra desires, they will be able to go on time and with His blessings. They’ll head south on Autostrade 21 which connects to A-7, to A-26 and into A-10. This brings them down through the small city of Alessandria and on to Torino. They plan to stop at 8 A.M. but not take breakfast because it’s a fasting day. They estimate 300 kilometers in three hours. After a little rest and japa, they will continue and try to make another 200 kilometers and stop for lunch. They will bypass Genova, go down the Riviera coast, and cross the borders of Monaco and into Nice, France. They’ll keep driving along the Cote d’Azur. Their schedule is to reach Aix-en-Provence by 3 P.M. There they will set up for the night, probably parked at a gas station beside trucks and cars.

The second day of travel they will do some early morning sadhana of japa and then leave by 5 A.M. The itinerary is to pick up Route A-8 and travel until it turns into A-7, then N-119, A-9 and then stop at 7:30 A.M. for breakfast. After two hours (including rest time)

they will drive on until a lunch stop and another break, another driving stretch, and reach the Spanish border at 4 P.M. They will set up for the night.

Third day of travel they again leave at 5 A.M. They hope to drive 250 kilometers along A-2 and stop for breakfast then rest, continue again another 200 kilometers, lunch again, continue driving again at night, then reach the ISKCON farm around 5:30 P.M.

Narahari tried to join the European automobile club, but he couldn’t due to the fact that his residence is in Ireland and the car is registered in Italy. The devotees wanted this membership because on two previous visits to Spain the car broke down on the highway, and it took a long time before they could get rescued and fixed. Devotees in Spain said that there’s a jinx in their country, or something like that. Narahari also complained that their Renault master van has an unusually small gas tank; he tried to get a bigger one but couldn’t do it. The van only runs for three hours before needing to refill. Basically it appears to be in good shape and has been recently serviced.

Their van is chock-full of cooking supplies, Prabhupada’s books and other paraphernalia, so that it’s a self-sufficient “traveling bhajana-kutir.” Narahari has been looking into all his different supplies and filling the different cubbyholes with everything needed from rice to pots to screwdrivers, to desk light bulbs, votive candles — literally hundreds and hundreds of items which only he knows about to full extent and which the Visiting Sannyasi knows about partially.

The van is legally owned, but there’s a complication. It’s overdue for a road test. Narahari said it’s no problem for traveling in other countries, and he’ll do it in the future when they return to Italy.

In these last days before they begin traveling, they have been frequenting a local store that operates a facsimile machine. With the luxury of having their “own” FAX number, they’ve been engaged in rapid communications with an Ayurvedic doctor in Canada to locate some source of anti-constipation medicine, with a devotee in New York who wants to come and join them in Spain, and who they’re asking to bring some books, with a devotee who promises to forward the Visiting Sannyasi’s mail to Spain, and the details for these communications go back and forth, sometimes with four or five FAXes a day. Seeing the benefit of this kind of rapid exchange, Narahari included in one of his FAXes to New York a request for some information about compu¬ters and the possibility of their keeping a computer with FAX capability in the van. When the Visiting Sannyasi saw this message, he said, “Hold on. I don’t want this. If we get a FAX, then that means we have a FAX number.”

“No one has to know it,” said Narahari.

“They’ll find out. And the next thing you know, they’ll ask us to be on COM and LINK and we’ll never have any peace. Please give up this idea of a FAX in the van.”

Story thus far:

The Visiting Sannyasi took part in an informal symposium of devotees arranged by the editor of Back to Godhead. The editor wanted them all to talk about community and hoped he could use it in his magazine.

During that meeting, the Visiting Sannyasi mentioned that he sometimes wrote poetry. Another member remarked, “I think a sannyasi has to do a lot more than write poetry if we are going to develop true community in our movement.” This remark drew several assents: “Yeah!” “Right!” All this was later published in the magazine and it made our sannyasi feel ashamed and guilty. And chagrined. He started writing again but kept the poems to himself and kept even the practice of writing a secret. He also tried to show a profile in various ways of one tangibly engaged in duties of sannyasa preaching.

The sannyasi had several problems connected with the writing of poetry. He was frustrated because he had so little time to write or even think in that way. Another problem was that whenever he expressed himself, he found he was filled with worldly allusions and images, whereas a Vaisnava poet ought to write about Krsna directly. He found statements in Srila Prabhupada’s writings which supported his poem-writing, and he took it as solace. He found such support not only in direct references encouraging disciples to write and pray but in many other places. For example, he took courage from a 1967 letter by Srila Prabhupada encouraging Murari dasa to go on playing his guitar in the kirtana and there was no need to learn to play sitar—”the best part of valor is to utilize properly whatever talents and qualifications we have got for the service of the Lord” (Letter of August 3, 1967).

The Visiting Sannyasi confided all this to his companion and brahmacari assistant, Narahari dasa. Narahari sympathized deeply and encouraged his friend to go on writing poems if it inspired him in Krsna consciousness.

From A Poor Man Reads the Bhagavatam, Volume 2: Canto 1 Chapters 3 and 4

pp. 66-70

Text 39

atheha dhanyā bhagavanta itthaṁ
yad vāsudeve ’khila-loka-nāthe
kurvanti sarvātmakam ātma-bhāvaṁ
na yatra bhūyaḥ parivarta ugraḥ

Only by making such inquiries in this world can one be successful and perfectly cognizant, for such inquiries invoke transcendental ecstatic love unto the Personality of Godhead, who is the proprietor of all the universes, and guarantee cent-percent immunity from the dreadful repetition of birth and death.

Comment

Suta Gosvami praises the sages’ inquires. This is one of those inspiring verses to give us strength to hear krsna-katha. I like to quote such verses to devotees to remind us all to read and chant. The Krsna consciousness movement is active in response to Srila Prabhupada’s order that we preach, but he probably gave even more instruction on hearing. He wanted both. He said of himself, “Because I was good at sravanam, therefore I am good at kirtanam.”

Suta praises the sages because their questions were transcendental. They didn’t ask, “Where is the bathroom?” Everybody asks mundane questions, but only a devotee can ask the kind of questions that free him from the dreadful repetition of birth and death.

A devotee’s questions are about the Personality of Godhead. Krsna is unknowable except to the extent that He reveals Himself, but Krsna does not reveal Himself to the nondevotees. He reveals Himself to those who want to know Him out of devotion. Otherwise, He is a mystery. Because they fail to worship His lotus feet, even the perfected brahmavadis fall back down into the material world. They don’t know where else to go.

The pure devotee is guaranteed liberation. What more assurance do we want? Well, usually we want to know if it’s possible to become one hundred percent liberated with only fifty percent investment on our parts. But we cannot cheat Krsna. Or, we can engage in cheating, but we will not attain genuine realization and success. Therefore, we have to inquire into the meaning of life, into the meaning of the Supreme Lord, and we have to make those inquiries in the association of devotees.

All right, then what about this? This verse assures us that a devotee is immune to repeated birth and death, but it doesn’t assure us that a devotee is immune from suffering. Prahlada Maharaja was tortured, Narada Muni lost his mother when he was only five years old, Queen Kunti suffered on behalf of her sons, Vasudeva and Devaki lost all their children and spent years in prison, and even Prabhupada appeared to experience tribulation. What about that?

I remember a disciple asking Prabhupada this question on a morning walk. Prabhupada said that at least a devotee knows that when he is suffering, he is suffering for the last time. His suffering is not useless, but it is purifying him so that he can go back to Godhead. At least we can take that much solace when we are suffering.

Beyond that, however, we shouldn’t approach devotional service as a means to relieve or eliminate suffering. Bhakti is not a painkiller. If we approach devotional service in that way, we are looking for salvation—a material desire—and not pure devotion. I remember one Indian man who complained to me that his wife was threatening to divorce him. Then he joined the temple, attended it regularly, and his wife divorced him anyway. He became disappointed in Bhagavan. We shouldn’t be like that. Krsna consciousness is not to be approached as an antidote to suffering, although ultimately, it relieves the greatest pain.

Once a devotee approached Prabhupada in tears and asked, “Why does Krsna make us suffer?” Rather than respond gently, Prabhupada became stern. “You should not come to Krsna to reduce your suffering. Come to Krsna to surrender and to serve.”

This will be our last time suffering in this place of suffering. When we go back to Godhead there will be no more misery. Rather, we will enjoy eternal, transcendental pleasure serving Krsna.

As for those great devotees who suffered, they weren’t suffering in an ordinary way. They were always in contact with Krsna and remained in internal bliss.

We should be grateful to the sadhus from whom we can inquire confidentially and with trust about Krsna. These inquiries are the only way in which we can invoke love of Godhead. Therefore, the association of learned Vaisnavas is the greatest gift. Prabhupada said we shouldn’t dare to think we are Vaisnavas, but that we are the servants of the Vaisnavas. The servant inquires, “How may I serve Krsna?”

What is a cent percent devotee? It means someone who has attained perfection. Sometimes a student excels on a test and receives a perfect score. There is a similar rank in spiritual life. A pure devotee makes no mistakes, and the teacher blesses the student with recognition of his achievement. In devotional terms, it means no karma or jnana. Ready to go back to Godhead.

The expert spiritual master stimulates us to ask questions. In the beginning, out of ignorance, our questions may not be focused on the Absolute Truth. We may want to know what we will get out of serving Krsna. Will we be free of pain? How does the universe function, anyway? If the questions are directed toward Krsna, the guru will lead us forward into the heart of bhakti.

According to this verse, it’s not good to be silent. Although in other places the silent worker is praised, nowhere does the sastra praise dullness. To make inquiry means we have to be at least curious. Gradually, curiosity develops into eagerness to hear. Eagerness to hear is as good as voicing a question. What we are meant to give is our undivided attention. The material world is not conducive for mental focus, but yoga means to practice control of the mind and senses.

The beginning of asking questions may be recognizing and nurturing that side of us that is serious and devotional. Often, devotees tend to disregard that side in their attempts to practice humility. We don’t have to mock ourselves. Better to go forward on our most sincere foot and ask questions regardless of that other voice that tells us we are being holy Joes or that our sincerity isn’t real. There is no point in starving ourselves spiritually in the name of humility. Then we will also be in a better position to seek answers to our daily dilemmas in our sadhana.

From Churning the Milk Ocean: Collected Writings 1993-1994

pp. 34-37

Writing Sessions: Introduction

Writing sessions are my daily bread, my writing staple. Writing sessions are rough-hewn free spirits. They are rich, like a forest filled with trees and undergrowth and wildlife. They are my “wild garden.” They are my way to “churn the milk ocean.” They are my exercise for the spirit, my way to relax, my prime writer’s duty. They are my way to fill notebooks. It’s practice.

Writing sessions return to the same themes over and over. In that way, they represent my life and they are true to that life. Writing sessions are the matrix from which other things may come. I keep returning to them, heeding the little voice in my head that says, “Isn’t it about time you get to working on writing sessions again?”

Writing sessions cannot really be defined in terms of genre. Having said that, I will give a simple and stark definition of what they are: they are timed (usually one-hour) writings in which I write whatever comes.

Here are some other statements about them that I have culled from the sessions themselves:

“I am performing this [writing session] for myself, for my betterment, so that I may come to praise and serve guru and Krsna one day, and not for my selfishness.”

“A desire to think over alone what has happened.”

“Don’t write to explain yourself to an objective reader so that no one will misunderstand you. That’s a bore. You’re not in a court of justice. Just speak as the flute blows.”

“You mean you go on writing even when you don’t have sober intent of a Krsna conscious topic in mind?

“Yes, because the loss of control helps me to get access to material without the censor-editor.”
“Every sentence proclaims a sorrow that I am not Krsna conscious and that I have to die and that all these people are here … we don’t seem to be doing what we should, not enough. Can’t say it. Can’t feel it. Can’t even dream it.”

“If you ask me what I think of something, I say, ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to do a writing session to find out.’ That’s a joke, but there’s truth in it.”

I began the journey toward my present writing around 1977 when I read Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow. He taught “free-writing,” something I later discovered was being taught by a whole generation of writing teachers. In 1977, despite its popularity among writing teachers, free-writing was still a challenged concept. Now it is taught across the writing school curriculum.

“Free-writing” means writing whatever comes to mind within a certain time limit. As a method, it is meant to free a writer from writer’s block. Writer’s block paralyzes a writer when it makes him unable to write and stifles him when he gets stuck on the surface, writing with competence but no heart.

Therefore, free-writing was intended as a warm-up to other writing. Elbow suggested a writer give himself a time limit and then write without concern for grammar, punctuation, spelling, or coherent communication. He said that the free- writer shouldn’t stop to think at all, but should write whatever comes to mind, even if that means writing repeatedly, “I can’t think of anything to say.”

He said that free-writing should not be used to produce publishable writing but should serve only as a warm-up. He also said that an author would write some of his best lines during a free-write session, but that it would be laziness or even cheating to scoop from those lines to develop a finished piece. Then he described how although he was once interested in what his free-writing produced, now he simply throws it in the trash.

I remember when I first started free-writing, I was living in Los Angeles and working as editor-in-chief for Back to Godhead magazine. I was interested in the technique because I was trying to improve my own writing. At that time, I was trying to write a book on varnasrama to fulfill Prabhupada’s request that I write something called, “All Things Fail Without Krsna.” At Peter Elbow’s advice, I started to use free-writing as my warm-up. But I didn’t find it satisfying. It seemed too roundabout and I couldn’t get to the point. I thought I couldn’t discover what it was I wanted to say simply by writing and writing and writing about it.

Free-writing didn’t have a real impact on my writing until almost ten years later when I read Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down the Bones. Goldberg calls free-writing “writing practice,” and she gives it rules: keep the hand moving, don’t think, go for the jugular (go for whatever is filled with energy), don’t be logical, use first thoughts. Her emphasis on how to be free of the internal editor, her dedication to writing practice as a way of life, and her definition of writing practice as something more than journal-writing were all helpful to me in my own writing.

That’s when I coined the phrase “writing sessions” for my free-writing. Not long after that, I wrote Shack Notes. (Shack Notes contains definitions of what writing practice is to me. If you would like to read those definitions, they’re gathered in the Introduction to that book.)

Writing Shack Notes was exhilarating. I wanted to see whether expressing my feelings in a relaxed way throughout many sessions during a concentrated writing time would help me discover myself. I wanted to know whether the actual person I was was different from the person I knew I was supposed to be according to institutional expectations. It was one of the first times in my twenty-five years as a devotee that I allowed such release from the strictures and asked myself whether I wanted to be a devotee of Krsna.

We are often afraid that if we let our guards down, we will fall into may a and leave Krsna consciousness. We have all seen devotees who have maintained their guards fall down suddenly. It’s almost as if they discovered some latent or repressed desires. I wanted to know whether I really wanted to be a devotee, whether I was spontaneously attracted to devotional service. Writing sessions were a good way to carry out that internal search.

I wrote the Shack Notes sessions at different times of the day, starting at one o’clock in the morning. I would write for more than an hour before stopping and then go on with my morning sadhana of hearing and chanting. Later, I would go out in the shack behind Samika Rsi’s house and write again, and then again in the afternoon. During that time, I was writing for about five and a half hours a day.

When I first began free-writing in earnest, I spent a lot of time battling the inner censor and critic. These internal voices ordered me to stop free-writing, to stop writing at all. The censor tried to convince me I wasn’t writing devotionally enough. The critic had a slightly different angle. He said I wasn’t writing anything valuable. It took a lot of energy to fend these voices off. I dialogued with them, argued back and forth, and tried to kill them off for good, but they are still there, always ready to attack. I doubt I’ll ever be free of them forever, but I no longer mount such bloody, frontal attacks that consume entire writing sessions. Just by writing regardless of their opinion is triumph enough.

From Human At Best

pp. 286-92

Voila

We have our own way
please believe me
you took the part that
once was my heart

he played behind her
singing he’s delayed
a half second behind the
beat hang back and
airy.

They call him Pres.
But you know it all comes
from the supreme and
some acknowledge it
directly as religion.

That’s not always the
best way to “preach.”§
The viola! Surprise
is sometimes better.

Or the indirect—leave
it to the reader.

They don’t like the
Gita-thumping sermon.
As for me—

he has rhythm if that’s
important.

I got rhythm. Something happy. But if I try to think of it, it will probably dampen any complexities and dualities. Only Krishna works, and He’s so far away, like a beautiful star, the Southern Cross. Oh yes, at least I listened well today.

“I don’t like his book,” he said of Poor Man. “I can’t even understand it.” But the other person said, “Why should he say he can’t understand it? He’s lived in the West.” Yes, it is filled with Western allusions. Marlborough cigarette cowboys, baseball players and jazz musicians. Even if one does know of them, why should they be put in a spiritual book? Now that’s a better question. The answer is . . . he can’t think of something else to say. Yes, the ladies are speaking philosophical prayers from the roofs of Hastinapura, but I may not be one of them. The gopas were whispering into Krishna’s ear or shouting a boast to Him, and the gopis were casting sidelong glances and playful words, cutting jokes in Sanskrit. The trees and the birds were appreciating Him. All—all but you down here in the Hebrides.

Prayer

1

You depend on Krishna and
on His devotees. You are
a freeloader in some
ways.

Getting the gravy, on
the bandwagon the
homeless men’s shelter.

2

He says his prayers at a
rapid clip—they all do that—
and some prayers to patron
saints.

Don’t forget not to ask
for anything since He
already knows.

Pray rockabye baby
put me to sleep. Pray
Krishna, you know best
how to handle a
reluctant soul.

3

My feet are dragging
but you and I know I must
give up this place and
my attachment to fame
and ease.

Make it happen, O Lord,
when You will. Thank
You for letting me write,
thank You for letting
me go.

Bhadra and Silavati’s—sleep, sleep your life away. Extra nap in the house before we left and nap in the back seat in the car as we rode here. I wasn’t exactly sleeping. I rehearsed the parts of my lecture. Who was the man who was envious of Srila Haridasa Thakura? Ramacandra Khan. And the other? Gopala Cakravarti. Who was envious of Ambarisha Maharaja? Durvasa Muni.

What about my own envy? Yes. And how to remedy it? Appreciate that they are pleasing Srila Prabhupada. You do this by using your intelligence. Make friends with them who please Srila Prabhupada or serve them. Don’t try to tear them down or their valuable service. Also, be glad you’re you and no one else.

Here I am “doing nothing,” either sectarian Krishna consciousness or broad-minded just listening to people with problems. I write books and live with a headache syndrome. Don’t dare to tell what I’m really thinking to a lecture audience. But at least here, getting it off your chest, your ambivalent and confused “feelings.”

Your belief is somewhat superficial. Or is it deep personally but troubled on the surface?

Etude

Sliding I told them to
please regret no
longer.

The devotee couldn’t
think what to say.
He quoted Bellow:
“Only fifteen minutes a day
can I write clearly.”
I said I’d like
explain to 150 students—
I’m responsible for—
that I am this way.
Accept it.

Which way?
Semiretired?
Fired?
Fried?
Thoreauvian.
No. What kind of guru
are you? I’ve got a lecture
with the history outlined,
but I hate explaining that stuff.
Just tell them something
new. Say

I live on the top of
a hill. You know I pray
sometimes a tiny spark
of it. Keep your mouth shut.
But I like his anxiety
for his family.

Keep your mouth shut.
Open it to lecture. Your
lecture outline looks like
shit to me.

Speak from experience.
There’s a leak in this
faucet. I live at home
and wait for the
inspiration.

Getting sentimental over
you he slows down
to end it.

What have you been doing? Did you multiply the capital he gave you? Or did you waste away? Like the first time the Swami left us for San Francisco and came back a few months later.

Yes, I remember those times—so many you could bring up . . . Going to Mayapur and Vrndavana. The issues now forgotten. Sweet and innocent, but power-hungry.

There’s no way a guy can
be a burnout in this movement
and not go back to Godhead.

Maybe it’s good to absorb shocks. As I glance at poems from a 1984 collection, I see a distrust of going alone, a sense that I must stay on the frontlines of duty. For me, God consciousness meant to fry myself in the fires of stress. There was no other way to prove my loyalty to Prabhupada. Passing thoughts of peace or of doing things my own way were temptations to accept defeat:

Sometimes I think I should go away
to be alone, to chant and hear,
but I know I cannot do it;
I would sink in lust and perish.
There is no point renouncing real duty.

You mean that the first work is to know yourself in something other than the svarupa-siddhi way? You mean give no real importance to the fact that you are a generic spirit soul but an individual? If that’s what you’re saying, how does one go about it? Is it time to explore mundane psychology?

No, I don’t mean that. But take care of yourself and think it out. I’m not going to come out with it here. Find out what you need to know by plumbing your own heart.

I know I sound as if I think I have an inside track, and that’s exactly why I don’t want to say too much here. Let me stick to my own work. When it’s my turn to lecture, I hope to tell simple truths and avoid manipulating others.

We have to be who we are and offer that to Krishna—our intention has to be pure.

From “You Cannot Leave Boston”: My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume 2

pp. 150-54

Los Angeles
5th August, 1969

My Dear Satsvarupa,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of both of your letters, one dated July 31, 1969 and the other August 2, 1969. The letter of August 2nd appears to be a practical proposal. The calculations for the house are nice. But everything should be done very carefully. If the landlord allows you to take possession of the house on payment of $12,000 on the terms and conditions as stated by you, then you must enter the house immediately, and we take it for granted it is Krishna’s offer. As far as you having to pay $6,000 down payment by October, from your calculation it appears that you shall be able to pay it. So in that case, the money paid by Giriraj may be deposited in a separate bank account for this purpose. If things go on according to your calculation, this opportunity must be taken; but I am always afraid of persons like Mr. Payne. You know the incident in New York how the real estate man, Payne, entrapped us by $6,000. I think Giriraj’s father is a lawyer, so he can help you in this connection, or any other lawyer friend. So if things are done very carefully, this scheme is approved by me. If they will give you immediate occupation of the house, and if there are no other tenants there, then it is all right. But if there are tenants, it will be botheration. We cannot deal with tenants, so if they are there, you may not accept it. But if the house is occupied by ourselves only, then it is all right. I think Giriraj is a very intelligent boy, so do everything carefully, and let me know the result. If this house can be occupied as our own, then the press department may be established in Boston immediately. If I go to New York on my way to Europe, then most probably I will stop at Boston also to see the new house. So do everything very carefully, and I shall await your further report in this connection.

Please offer my blessings to the others. I hope this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

P.S. I have also received another letter by Special delivery. So everything is Krishna’s Grace. Take the risk for Krishna but do everything very diligently. I sanction it.

We were moving forward to purchase the new house. It seemed like such a great deal. Prabhupada liked the idea of a bigger building and in this letter, mentions that perhaps the ISKCON Press would be moved to Boston. It’s obvious from this letter that he went over my calculations on how we would pay for the house, and of course, he reminded me of the time we were cheated in New York by Mr. Payne. Prabhupada trusted us to negotiate this deal on ISKCON’s behalf, but he was also aware of how easily we could be cheated.

Our real estate agent’s name was Mr. MacDonald. He was a cheater, an Irish-American, crass and materialistic. He came from South Boston, and he reminded us of a tough, cheap, foul-mouthed gangster. The owner of the house was an undertaker. He had used the house to showcase his coffins and to store his supplies. (I still remembering finding bottles of embalming liquid in the basement.) They pretended to be interested in us, but we could see through their artificiality. They seemed willing to risk us as buyers, even though it was obvious that we were all young, that none of us had money or a business, and that all we did to support ourselves was to sell magazines on the street. They probably thought they could suck some money out of us until we defaulted and then foreclose and keep their profits. When Giriraja and I met with MacDonald and the owner during a pre-purchase meeting, they suddenly told us to wait and they went outside to confer. I found it odd how they withdrew from the room and then returned in a positive spirit, ready to accept our offer.

Giriraja was careful and cautious. We expected to be cheated, so we decided to show the contract to Giriraja’s father. As far as we could see, however, it was a good deal. The house was selling for $75,000. They were giving it to us with a $12,000 down payment.

I told Prabhupada we could earn the money by increasing our book and magazine distribution. I had held an ista-gosthi with the devotees—the few of us that were there—and told them that my paycheck was the sole support of the temple. To pay for this house, we would have to increase our magazine distribution dramatically. This was at a time when the devotees had dramatically increased their distribution, but we needed still more. It was a risk, but the devotees were spirited.

We had a sweet group of devotees in Boston in those days—Nanda-kisora and Jahnavi, Vaikunthanatha, Jadurani. All of them agreed to do the needful. It was such a good deal that we didn’t want to pass it up.
Our mortgage payments were to be over a thousand dollars a month. When we finally did move in, we were late with our payments a few months in a row. Even though Mr. MacDonald had been nice to us when we were still potential buyers, he would come by and curse us with foul language when we were late.

Finally, he and the owner called us in for a meeting at the owner’s funeral parlor. (Actually, the owner used to sell us old flowers.) The owner and Mr. MacDonald were of similar character, so it was a hard-nosed meeting. The owner told us that because we had been late twice, he was going to add an extra thousand dollars onto the purchase price as a penalty. If we didn’t agree to the increase, he would evict us immediately. “But I very much like your group and what you are doing,” he said, “and that’s why I am adding on the extra thousand dollars. You have to learn discipline. It’s for your own good.”

We assured him that we would pay on time in the future and we presented our excuses for being late, but we only gave the appearance of accepting the thousand-dollar penalty.

As soon as we returned to the temple, however, I called an ACLU lawyer named Friedman, who had helped us with problems in the past. He was young and idealistic, and when I related the details of our meeting with MacDonald and the owner, he immediately became angry and told us that MacDonald had no right to charge us an extra thousand dollars, that it wasn’t legal, and that he would do something about it. I’m sure he saw us as idealistic kids being cheated by tough businessmen.

MacDonald was furious that we had dared approach a lawyer. To make matters worse, we publicized the event by speaking about it with a reporter from Boston magazine. I spoke candidly about the initial terms under which we had purchased the property and told him about our dissatisfaction with MacDonald’s dealings. MacDonald became even more furious.

We never did fail in making our payments, although we were late once in a while. I appreciated that even from a distance, Prabhupada knew to warn us not to trust these men despite the fact that they were so well- dressed. He knew they were only interested in cheating us. At the same time, Prabhupada encouraged us to take the risk.

from Sanatorium: A Novel

pp. 14-19

The Holy Name is absolute. Even if you chant mockingly or by accident or the sounds aren’t spaced—words like “Ramada”—still, it has the effect of chanting the Holy Name. The inmates knew this and so they chanted, knowing even a poor recitation was the most important thing to accomplish in a day. The numerical strength is also important. So don’t excuse yourself. Meet you in the spiritual world. Don’t fall behind.

The sun began to pour through the window blinds. Another day had begun. They filed into the temple room to watch a few brahmanas undress and bathe and redress Radha-Govinda. Then they went down for breakfast. There was an early-morning guest so they got prepared to see him and embrace him, half-regretful that it would take away some japa time. But they tried for it later. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Inmates recover in this way. They live in harmony under the shelter of the Holy Name.

Light blue, chipped teeth,
mashed hand, my good friend
brings an unbroken sringasana
across the sea and now
Radha-Govinda and Prabhupada
are joined happily on the little
altar in Radha’s barn.

We can climb the stairs and
sit on our rockers and
listen to Swami sing a half-
hour and join in the chorus.
We can bathe them in the morning.
No time to do Prabhupada in
weakened condition. Pray to him
early in the morning even
if it takes a walk upstairs,
you can do it. Hare Krsna
music and art.

Light blue means
he’s not outgoing but he’s happy
he gets to go near the
japa quota and he’s so
dependent on dear friends
who don’t mind taking care of
him even though he’s
a grownup man.

He’s making it up, he
never loved and read
like he said in his
younger days. He’s making up
everything as he goes along
praying to keep a decent reputation.

He’s keeping to the outskirts but
meeting famous people as they
come through. They lecture to
crowds and give him a little
private time in his private
room of the sanatorium.

Keep the tune. To a friend
who does not mind he plays
“Coming on the Hudson” and
says “I just like it always
even though now I’m an
enrolled renunciate for
my whole life.”

I dig it says A.
and they don’t let the others hear
because they couldn’t understand a monk
loving God in his own
way each one, and God accepts them all.

“I got an astrology reading,” said Bhakta Tim on his bed, “and it said if I could handle it, a pilgrimage would be good for me for a few weeks in October and November this year. But I’d have to have someone help me administer my medicines and so on.”

Some of the other subpersons gave their different opinions that he probably wasn’t up to it but some said it was an excellent idea and he ought to get off his duff and go and get the mercy.

One of them quoted from the Brhad-bhagavatamrta which had just been read to them at lunchtime where it said that the highest goal can be attained by chanting the Holy Names of God and visiting holy places.

Another remarked, “But it’s such a strain to go to India, so austere for a weak fellow like you, Bhakta Tim. You have to take astrology with a grain of salt. It could turn out to be a nightmare. You know you’d meet up with all kinds of people you don’t like. And your regulated life like we have in the sanatorium wouldn’t be possible But what do I know? There’s great benefit in going to the dhama they say, and that’s an absolute truth.”

“Maybe if some of you guys went with me,” Tim said, “you could help me get through it.”

“I ain’t going nowhere,” said Anuttama dasa. “We have a very good deal right here for being with good people, being taken care of, and there’s no shortage of hearing and chanting. We’re in the best circumstances. So don’t throw that away in a premature trip to wild India.”

“But it’s not ‘India,'” said another. “That’s just the covering. If Bhakta Tim goes, he’ll have to suffer the covering to get to the inside. He’ll have to be prepared for that. Good things don’t come so easily.”

“You’re getting your pains every day right here, in the best situation for an invalid. How can we fly off and act like a rigorous renunciate? And look, Swami Swims has a cane, and he has to wear those orthopedic shoes. He wouldn’t even be allowed in the temple.”

“Don’t put Tim down. Encourage the idea. If not this year, then the next.”

There was an important statement for me when Gopa-kumara was about to tell his own life story to the brahmana, when they were together in Vrndavana. One might think to talk about oneself is not bona fide. Gopa-kumara didn’t want to appear puffed up talking about himself. But he knew talking about what he had gone through to reach the goal of perfection was the best way to instruct the brahmana.

So he was confident and went ahead. The commentator says, “Experience is the best form of proof.” There may be other statements about the best form of proof, but there it is in Brhad-bhagavatamrta, and I rejoiced to see it and present it to you now. Even if your experience is not the experience of one who has reached the goal of truth, describing it is the best way of instructing someone or telling them what is real, what is true. Mary Oliver entitles her latest poetry book, What Do We Know? We know what we have experienced, that’s for sure. It may be faulty knowledge, but we know it happened. The person who hears from us will get authentic stuff. Even if it is a tale of woe, an uncouth tale, a tale of what we should not do. Of course, the experience of a perfect person is perfect proof in the very best sense. But I have taken it to mean that the experience of a struggler is also the best way to get a particular kind of truth. He’s not bluffing, and you can learn from him. In other words, one form of teaching by experience means, “Do as I did,” and the other is, “Don’t do as I did,” and both are instructive and even inspiring.

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Free Write Journal #393 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

The post Free Write Journal #392 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook
2. ISKCON in the 1970s: Diaries
3. The Story of My Life, Volume 1
4. The Nimai Series, Volume 3: Gurudeva and Nimai—Struggling for Survival
5. Srila Prabhupada Revival (The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Vol. 2)
6. Gite Stories and Stories in April
7. 8 1/2 Days Before Going to India
8. When the Saints Come Marching In

ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 5)

REFLECTIONS/JAPA MEDITATIONS

Mandalesvara and I walking, chanting in beautiful twilight of Gita Nagari. I am on my seventeenth round. I ask, “Is there anything you want to discuss?” He says no. I say, “Yes, the chanting is enough.” We go on walking through pre-spring mud: “Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.”

******

I remember an old Zen story. Two monks walking in a forest. They hear nearby the loud roar of a lion. One of them breaks into laughter. The Zen story is incomplete realization, to say the least. You can laugh at death, at nothingness, at fear, at pain, at violence, at illusion—but the laugh or meditation on nothingness won’t actually help you. You will have to take another birth and again experience dualities. But, ante narayana-smrtih, your devotional service will be tested at the time of death. Practice to chant the Hare Krsna mantra. Do not chant like the parrot who may learn to utter “Hare Krsna,” but when grabbed at the throat cries, “Caw caw!” Prabhupada said practice so that when death comes you will chant Hare Krsna.

******

“If one’s heart does not change, tears do not flow from his eyes, his body does not shiver nor his hair stand on end as he chants the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, it should be understood that his heart is as hard as iron. This is due to his offenses at the lotus feet of the Lord’s holy name.”

This verse should not make us try to force or imitate this state, but it should make us humble about our chanting. When we chant, does our heart change? Do tears flow, the body shiver? We give warning again and again—don’t try to bring this on, but see your humble position because this is not happening; the chanting is not first-class, due to offenses to the holy name. Chant heart and soul early in the morning and you will be prepared to take on all obstacles in the day.

******

We want to save ourselves and we want to propagate the holy name, and it’s the holy name itself that will save us. Krsna will be pleased that we are chanting and pleased that we are distributing. Isvara Puri advised Lord Caitanya,

“My dear child, continue dancing, chanting, and performing sankirtana in association with devotees. Furthermore, go out and preach the value of chanting krsna-nama, for by this process you will be able to deliver all fallen souls.”

******

You must think of chanting in terms of serving the spiritual master, not just as your own sadhana. I am thinking Srila Prabhupada has given me different responsibilities, and if I don’t carry them out he will be displeased with me.

******

Spiritual life rests on chanting. That’s the main teaching. Chant Hare Krsna, chant sixteen rounds. So how can that not be thought of as service to the spiritual master? Sometimes the spiritual master may find out, “Oh, some disciple, he is not chanting. What kind of a disciple is that? He promised he would chant. We are always stressing chant.” I can’t advance in devotional service unless I chant. Therefore, it’s not just your sadhana, but everything you do is to serve Krsna and the spiritual master. Everything. That should be our dedication, that there is nothing apart.

******

I think I would do better to ignore the mind’s dwelling on a piece of dirt rather than keep holding it up for inspection, exclaiming, “Gosh, it’s still there; and again, look, it’s still there; how persistently it stays! What a disease! Will I ever be rid of this before the time of death?” This is like too much of a challenge to the rascal mind. So let me try not to be so worried and instead turn my mind elsewhere, even though the piece of dirt (or mental thorn) remains. There is a Canakya sloka which says that mental dirt cannot be cleaned away after hundreds of times of bathing in a sacred river. And yet the holy name, according to the Siksastakam, can clean away the dirt accumulated for many lifetimes together.

******

Today in the class in New York I was stressing that the devotees chant feeling a personal connection with their spiritual master. This in itself will help keep one’s mind fixed on the holy name. Always remember that you promised your spiritual master to chant Hare Krsna without offenses, including the offense of inattentive chanting. It is a personal obligation, and one should chant keeping the order of the spiritual master in mind and therefore keeping the personal connection.

******

Study sections in the scriptures about the holy names, such as the chanting of Ajamila or Haridasa Thakura’s instructions about the holy name or Lord Caitanya’s descriptions in Adi-lila, Chapter Seven, about chanting the holy name under the direction of Isvara Puri. Then absorbing such things and realizing more the importance of the holy name, you should humbly chant with surrender.

Excerpts From GN Press

From ISKCON in the 1970s: Diaries

pp. 20-25

June 24, 1973

Srila Prabhupada said we have done only 1% of our work. It is all in Srimad-Bhagavatam. Now we have to demonstrate it. ISKCON is like the appearance of the Varaha incarnation, who sprung from Brahma’s nostril in a small size and suddenly grew half the size of the universe. Brahman means bigger than the biggest and still becoming bigger. In every one of our centers there must be arati and sankirtana going on, or else Krsna consciousness becomes slack. We have to keep alive Thus, daytime sleep should be avoided. We can take a little rest, but otherwise, if tired, chant Hare Krsna. Our centers are there to invite people to keep alive.

Discussing a book in Bengali about an assembly of sinners who were amazed at the appearance of Lord Caitanya, and lamented that now that Lord Caitanya has appeared, there will be no more illicit sex and other sinful activities. He said people in the West think like that about the Hare Krsna movement—shocked that we intend to end meat-eating, illicit sex.

June 26-28

Crossing the Ganges in an old wooden boat. Prabhupada sat. People calling out to us, “Hare Krsna.” He said that wherever we go and people see us, they say Hare Krsna. Even when he arrived in a plane stopover at night, they chanted Hare Krsna.

Calcutta—Went to the kaviraja’s house. He felt Srila Prabhupada’s pulse. Then Prabhupada went to another room and everyone in the house came to receive darsana and offer fruit. We held Hare Krsna kirtana. Me, terrible headache, weak from cholera shot, leading chanting in kaviraja’s, Srila Prabhupada pleased. Big basket of fruit.

Riding in the car afterwards, we said hardly anything. Then this morning we visited another man’s home, a modest apartment, seemingly mundane things (talking in Bengali), and Prabhupada finally told them to chant Hare Krsna.

I was very sick for two days, now returned to life, eating, digesting, working. Srila Prabhupada ate a kacauri yesterday, cooked by his sister, and now he has become sick again. Plans are uncertain now about going to London. Thinking to ask him how I can expand my activities in the zone. I am so saturated with self-interest—if I could only think, “What is best for Krsna,” then I would get direction how to do big things for the zone. Festivals coming together, parades in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland.

Srila Prabhupada is ill. His sister is coming to see him but not helping. Took picture of Nrsimhadeva from altar.

Srila Prabhupada subdued us. He called in his big GBC and sannyasi leaders—their consensus was go to good climate, Hawaii or L.A., to rest. No, he wanted to preach in the West. All leaders subdued by his calm forceful statement of “strength of mind.”

From my notes:

He said, “Strike while the iron is hot. I think that is an English maxim. Then you can keep it in shape.”
“In the West they are fed up. I want to give spiritual enlightenment. Two very misleading theories: (1) life comes from matter, (2) there is no life after death (so enjoy), everything is matter. As this movement grows, Communism will be curbed.

“They try for unity, but this simply means our Ratha-yatra festival. They have no brain to see. By the complicated League of Nations and United Nations, still they fail. This simple method all over the world. Gandhi’s method was to cut up India into India and Pakistan, and now who cares for noncooperation, nonviolence? But by our movement this culture is spread all over the world. Jagannatha means ‘Lord of the Universe.’ International God, thanks to ISKCON.”

July 4

He criticized Western civilization for ruination of human living. They are thinking there is no time for self-realization. Not only must they work eight hours a day, but they try to save time for spending at naked dancing, vacations, intoxication. Our movement is fighting this. It is not religious sentiment, but trying to save humanity from ruin.

Regarding Midwest zone, he said that since centers are established there, then go into interior—come and go, come and go, some go south, some go north, in this way (cover all the towns and villages). If we make some devotees, we can open centers. Centers should not be opened whimsically, opened one day and closed the next.

I can go with my party and encourage the centers also to send parties; not just to do hard-core book distribution. Give them direction—but preach, meet people, hold feasts in cities—go to the interior, chanting in Kansas City, Topeka, Minneapolis, etc.

Riding home in a taxi from the pandal, question asked by Jayapataka Swami: “If we gain political power, will we follow Manu-samhita?”

“First gain power,” he said. “Then yes, Manu-samhita. Actually everything is in the Gita and Bhagavatam in gist. Manu-samhita is based on varnasrama, and that is in the Gita: ‘I created the four orders.’ First we would divide society into orders by quality and work, not birth. Someone made a brahmana would have to act like a brahmana or else he would be punished.”

Being asked, he told Pancadravida Swami how to preach to smartas in South India who may know Sanskrit:

Learn five slokas a month; in six months you’ll know thirty slokas. That should be enough to present Bhagavad-gita. PDS said Hrsikesananda was going to help him with pronunciation. Prabhupada said, this-ananda, that-ananda, be your own person. Do not be dependent on someone else to learn your work for you. When asked how to preach to Shaivites, he said, “Ask them, ‘My dear sir, do you accept Bhagavad-gita?’ They will all say yes. Then quote: ‘Those whose intelligence is maddened worship the demigods.’ Come to understand Bhagavad-gita well, even in English, and you can preach.”

About me and getting through international airlines, customs entanglement, “He is doing his best, but he does not have experience. If every month a new man, then I have to suffer.” TKG said, “But we suffer when you get angry upon us.” He said, “But your suffering is secondary.” He was detained three hours in Paris and practically jailed four days from Africa to Australia. “I am coming and going so much. I am a little bit known. I should not have to wait on lines. That is the job of the secretary. He should be so expert that these rascals with all their rules are answered and I am not detained as an ordinary person.”

I would say, “It is all right. I have checked everything.” He would reply, “You say that, but then I will be stopped at the airport.” If everything is not cleared, he is detained.

“You have to have a brain, always alert. One who has a brain has strength.”

From The Story of My Life, Volume 1

pp. 121-23

Boston: Second Visit

Prabhupada visited Boston for a second time in 1969. We were still in the first storefront, and we found him an apartment right across the street. He carried small Radha Krishna Deities with him. Himavati made him a set of clothes for Them. Radharani’s skirt was a little short. “That is all right,” he wrote, “It affords us a look at Her lotus feet.” He arrived from a visit to Buffalo. We sat in his room, and he played us the recording of the last lecture he gave there, at the student hall. A boy had raised his hand for a question. “What happens when you go inside and you look further and further and further and further and further!?” He was crazy. Prabhupada replied, “That I do not know. You know.” That boy chanted Hare Krishna and became an initiated disciple in time, named Kusakratha. He became a great Sanskrit scholar.

Prabhupada stayed two weeks in Boston. He was accessible to devotees, and he gave college lectures. Just before he came, the newspapers did a feature story on us for the colored section of the Sunday paper. A lot of it was favorable. They said we were American transcendentalists, like Thoreau. He called me the “lean chieftain” of the temple. But at the end of the article he hit a sour note. He brought a friend to our Sunday feast. His friend said, “There but for the grace of God I could wind up, or one of my kids.” I was upset by that part and showed it to Prabhupada. He said I should write a letter of complaint to the newspaper, and I did.

By now I was married and lived in an apartment across the street from the temple. My wife and I stayed in one room, and three girls painted in another room, under Jadurani’s direction. There was a big, rough, black guy who lived with his girlfriend on the floor below us. As soon as we moved in he came storming upstairs and pounded on our door. He threatened us and said he didn’t want to hear any cymbals chanting or he would come up with a shotgun. Jadurani had answered the door. She had a way of trying to laugh people off when they confronted her. She did it to this guy, and he imitated her sound and threatened her more. I came to the door and assured him we were not going to have kirtanas in our apartment. That was saved for the temple. “You better not or I’ll kick your block off,” he said to me. I asked him to calm down and not be so angry. He calmed down a little but left us with a threat. He had a double standard. He could make noise if he wanted. He would stand in the street and shout up three floors to his white girlfriend, “Hey Red!” One time Prabhupada was coming back from his walk with Devananda, and as he stepped up on the curb from the road, the big, black guy crossed right in front of him, coming close to bumping him. He didn’t do it maliciously, but he was just treating Prabhupada like a nonentity, not giving him the royal right-of-way as he deserved. I saw it from the window and became angry. He was such a jerk, such a boor. Just to finish the incident I saw this guy a few years later after we had moved. I bumped into him on a subway platform. He was completely different. He greeted me in a friendly way and asked, “Where have you been?” I told him we had moved. He said it was nice to see me again, and he hoped I was doing all right. I played along with his mood, and we even shook hands. He smiled and was a gentleman. I don’t know what changed him. He was entirely different after living for two weeks on the same street as Prabhupada.

The biggest event of Prabhupada’s visit was that he conducted a triple wedding. Some of the girls had minor illnesses, and Prabhupada said it was because they weren’t married. As soon as the word got around that he said this, Saradiya, who was about seventeen years old and very beautiful, went to Prabhupada like a trusting daughter and frankly told him that she wanted to marry a boy named Vaikunthanatha who had come to Boston to help us prepare for Prabhupada’s visit. He was a good handyman and very worshipful towards Prabhupada. Prabhupada assured Saradiya that he would make arrangements with Vaikunthanatha. He then called Vaikunthanatha and told him that Saradiya wanted to marry him. Vaikunthanatha was agreeable to the suggestion, and it was settled. Then there was talking, confiding and gossiping among the women. Rukmini, who was eighteen years old and had joined the temple to learn painting from Jadurani, was also a beautiful girl and serious about Krishna consciousness. She confessed to her friends that she wanted to marry Baradraja, an artist who was visiting Boston from Montreal. Baradraja was very aesthetic, and when he gave class he spoke often of lotus flowers and lotus feet. He was an independent kind of spirit. He agreed to marry Rukmini, and Prabhupada approved. That left one unmarried girl, pretty Jahnavi, who was a painter who knew the philosophy well. Behind the scenes, as these things were done (without Prabhupada’s matchmaking), Nanda Kishora and Janavi agreed to marry. Nanda Kishora was visiting Boston for Prabhupada’s visit. He was a likeable fellow who used to inquire from Srila Prabhupada about aspects of Krishna conscious philosophy. So it was arranged, a temple wedding. One day Rukmini stopped me in the hall of the apartment building and thanked me for taking care of her, which I thought was sweet. The ceremony was held in the storefront with a fire built of orange crate wood. There were no interruptions, and it went smoothly, with all the couples taking vows of obedience in marriage. The girls wore new saris and the boys wore clean kurtas and dhotis. Prabhupada presided and made a speech about ideal marriage. I was proud that Boston, like the first time Prabhupada came and held the first brahmana initiations, was pulling off the first triple wedding under his own direction. Unfortunately, at first, the married couples did not plan to stay in Boston, so that was a disappointment. But it turned out differently so they all stayed. That’s a different story. In fact, at first it seemed that everyone was going to leave when Prabhupada left. I went to him, and asked if he could give me some manpower. He sympathized and asked Devananda, who was planning to leave, to stay with us.

During this day a wonderful new boy became interested. At an engagement at Brandeis University, a young man named Glen walked into the auditorium after the lecture was over and I was leading the second kirtana. He started talking with the devotees and became interested. They invited him to come in the car to the temple with them. He had his own mixed up philosophy in which he thought he was God, and the devotees engaged in friendly debate and preaching with him. He liked their points very much. The next night he attended the temple program where Prabhupada gave the lecture. He raised his hand and engaged in questions and answers with Prabhupada. By force of logic and spiritual presence, Prabhupada got Glen to admit he was not God. Glen submitted and bowed down before Prabhupada. Glen attended a few more meetings and talked with Prabhupada, and by the time Prabhupada was leaving, he had a serious new candidate for Krishna consciousness. Glen was dark-haired, gentle and sweet-tempered, and all the devotees liked him and encouraged him. After Prabhupada left, Glen moved into the little storefront to live. And after a few months Prabhupada sent him his name in a letter. He was Giriraja dasa Brahmacary.

From The Nimai Series, Volume 3: Gurudeva and Nimai—Struggling for Survival

pp. 130-32

Gurudeva’s Forest School

[Nimai]: There was a wheelbarrow in a woodshed which I used to carry chopped wood from the forest to the cabin. After a couple of months, Gurudeva still couldn’t walk, except very slowly with two canes, and so I began to think that I could make the wheelbarrow into a palanquin for carrying him to some nearby places. I had favorite places which Gurudeva hadn’t seen, such as the creek, the lake, a nice grove, and other spots which I wanted to share with him. When I first mentioned my idea, he laughed and scoffed at it. But I kept telling him it would be nice and comfortable and that he would be happy to see more of Krsna’s wilderness. Then one day I just went ahead and cleaned up the wheelbarrow, padded it with some clothes and a cloth and presented it at the door, introducing myself as a pukka rickshaw driver. Gurudeva accepted the ride, and I took him along the path I had worn leading into the forest and toward the lake. We were both glad that he took the ride, because it opened up new vistas for Gurudeva, who had been cooped up in the one room with all its reminders of trappers and hunters.

A few days after Gurudeva’s first palanquin ride, the ice on the lake suddenly broke up. A big piece of brittle ice that spanned the lake was pushed against the shore by the wind. Slowly it drove against the shore in piles of jagged, broken crystals with a sound like thousands of dinner plates breaking. It continued for a few days like that, crashing and crunching on the rocks and scarring trees, until eventually the lake was thawed out. The ducks soon found out about it and began landing on the lake and diving after fish. I also began to notice more animal tracks, either because there were actually more animals walking about, or because I was noticing things better. I was noticing details that escaped me at first, and I was becoming at least a little bit attuned to the natural world around us.

By now it was over a month since we had been eating only what we found in the woods. During the first four or five days of “fasting,” I had headaches and other bodily discomforts, but then the body seemed to resign itself and allow my mind to be free. It was harder to do chores, but we also didn’t burn wood twenty-four hours a day in the stove, and so my work wasn’t as much.

One day when we came back from a nature walk, Gurudeva announced that he wanted to start a forest school and that it required my cooperation. I had noticed that he had been writing intensely for a week or so. He said he had prepared a syllabus for different courses that he hoped could be taught by different senior devotees, and that he wanted to form a Krsna consciousness institute whenever we returned to civilization. I thought it was a wonderful idea, and I told him I would love to help him bring it about once we returned to temples and association of devotees.

“But I want to start it now,” said Gurudeva. “We will begin our own experimental school, just you and me right here in the mountains.” At first I couldn’t grasp it, until he explained that I would be the only student in all the classes and that he would teach me. I didn’t like the prospect. It seemed like too much responsibility for me, but Gurudeva was so excited by it that his voice was extra forceful and his eyes were shining.

“There will be six courses, Nimai, and you’ll be the star pupil in all of them. There is brahminical culture, logic and public speaking, prayer and inner life, Sanskrit and verse memorization, a writing course, and a course on Srimad-Bhagavatam. What do you think?”

“I don’t know if I can do it, Gurudeva,” I replied limply. “But I’ll try.”

“If you try, you’ll succeed,” he said. I was glad that Gurudeva was confident in me, but afraid that if I did fail to hold up my end, he might become frustrated in his plan for the institute.

“There will be homework in each course,” he said, “and exams.” I never cared for academic institutions and Gurudeva knew that, so he assured me, “It won’t be like an ordinary school. You’ll like it.” I hoped so.

My participation in the courses turned out to be a lot of foolishness, and I would rather not tell about it. I don’t know what good it will do unless you want to laugh at me. Gurudeva’s forest school has since developed successfully and so my initial difficulties don’t have much significance. But he wanted me to tell about it. He said it’s history and people can benefit from hearing the mistakes of the first blundering pioneer. So only out of duty I’ll tell some of it, but make it brief. One excuse for my behavior is that when you go a long time without eating, you daydream a lot due to lightness.

In the course called Brahminical Culture, I became very enthusiastic but imitative. I’m not an initiated brahmana, so I had to function as a “blind uncle.” In case you don’t know what a blind uncle is, it comes from a story told by Prabhupada. There was once an orphan who was crying because he had no mother and father. His uncle came to him and volunteered that he would act as the child’s parent, but unfortunately this uncle was blind. The bereft child accepted the offer, saying, “A blind uncle is better than none.” So I was the blind uncle/student at the forest school.

One of the important purposes of the Brahminical Culture course, according to Gurudeva, was to understand the deep cultural and spiritual meaning underlying the different acts which a devotee performs, which we may take as ritualistic unless we know why we’re doing them. I missed that point and became more interested in imitating the refined behaviors of a spiritual person. I would end up doing wrong things with a flair. For example, no one is supposed to recite the Gayatri mantras unless he is an initiated brahmana. But I reasoned to myself that since I was taking the brahminical class, I might be an exception to this rule. As Gurudeva’s servant, I used to carry an envelope containing sheets of the Gayatri mantra for when he initiated brahmanas, although I wasn’t supposed to look. But I began to recite the Gayatri when I became a student in the course for brahmana Another thing only brahmanas can do is worship salagrama-sila. This is a form of the Lord like the statues in the temple of Radha and Krsna, only the Sila is worshiped just as it appears in nature, as a stone from sacred places in India, like Govardhana Hill. In the brahminical mood, I picked up a rock from the stream nearby and while I didn’t actually start anything with it, I was toying with the idea of considering it like a practice Sila. Gurudeva must have read my mind, because when he saw me carrying it he said, “What do you think you’re doing?” I tried not to admit what was on my mind, but as I say, he seemed to read me, and he reprimanded me strongly. He told a story at that time of a brahmana who put two little balls inside of his pot, and all other brahmanas imitated him without knowing what he was doing.

I also had been practicing little things I had seen other brahmanas in the Movement do, such as facing the sun when saying mantras and lying down at night facing the East and folding your dhoti with special pleats and wearing armbands, although I didn’t wear an earring like some of them do. Although I experimented, I wasn’t really sure which direction to face or exactly how to move your fingers in the mula mantras and things like that. Gurudeva got pretty disgusted with my antics and decided that it wasn’t a good idea to teach someone like me, who wasn’t yet a brahmana, in a course for brahmi nical culture. So for the time being he dropped that from the syllabus.

From Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival (The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami, Volume 2)

pp. 75-78

BACK TO THE BEGINNING:

Random notes, first lecture by Prabhupāda at 72^nd Street, New York City, March 2^nd 1966

Arjuna is perplexed whether to fight. There was some argument. (Prabhupāda turns to a boy in the audience and asks him what is he doing? He says he is reading the translations of the verses of Bhagavad-gītā. Prabhupāda says, “Don’t turn your attention.”)

From the worldly point of view Arjuna is making a good proposal. He was speaking with gentlemanly behavior. Kṛṣṇa didn’t like it. Kṛṣṇa is inducing him. He tells Arjuna that he is an Āryan (a touchy word for a 1960’s American audience). Prabhupāda: “People at the present moment” (are against war) so we may do something that the public doesn’t agree with. (But we must remember) Kṛṣṇa was supreme. This is an important point. Arjuna argued. He said if many people were killed no śraddhā would be offered to the ancestors, the women would become adulterated and there would be unwanted population. He argued in so many ways and said, “I cannot fight.” (But Arjuna had the consciousness that Kṛṣṇa can make a solution.)

A kṣatriya has to fight. If he is challenged, a kṣatriya has to gamble. The Pāṇḍavas lost everything by betting and had to go into exile for 12 years. Arjuna is aware that he is deviating from the duty of a kṣatriya. He says, “You should tell me. All right, now I accept You as my spiritual master.”

(Prabhupāda discusses Vedic marriage. He says the parents are very careful to arrange the marriage. He discusses the red line in the part of a woman’s hair which indicates that she is married.) Prabhupāda compares the red mark in the woman’s part to a disciple wearing a sacred thread. He mentioned Mr. Cohen, who has seen Prabhupāda’s sacred thread. A girl wearing the red mark in the middle of her hair is seen as respectable. The relationship of the spiritual master and the disciple brings the solution of life. It is conducted with questions and answers. Arjuna knows Kṛṣṇa is perfect … They were engaging in friendly talks, but Arjuna wanted to accept Kṛṣṇa as his spiritual master. If you accept the wrong spiritual master your life is ruined.

A man from the audience indicates that he wants to ask a question. Prabhupāda allows him. The man asks, “If the disciple is in ignorance, how can he know who to pick as his spiritual master?”

Prabhupāda answers that at least one should know something of spiritual life. If one wants to find a good school, if he is searching for a good school, he should not go to a cloth shop. You must know (by investigating schools, what is a good school). Prabhupāda quotes Sanskrit and says, “A spiritual master is for one who wants knowledge.” The disciple has to have preliminary knowledge. He wants a definite answer.

Everyone is suffering. But the animals don’t have higher consciousness, they can’t enquire. There are three kinds of sufferings, by the body, by the mind, by nature … (Prabhupāda says suffering by nature is out of our control. He gives the example of a heavy snowfall in New York City and everyone’s inconvenience.) The other kind of suffering is from other living beings. We don’t want suffering. You need a spiritual master to awaken you to the solution. Prabhupāda gives the example of education. He says everyone is seeking education to get a good job. Prabhupāda says that if you want to purchase jewelry you have to go to a jewelry shop. You have to have preliminary knowledge of what jewelry is and go to the proper place to get it (not a grocery store). Vedic knowledge is for ending the suffering for good. The spiritual master is a representative of Kṛṣṇa. Why is Kṛṣṇa accepted? (Here Prabhupāda is getting on to touchy ground. He is allowed to put forward Kṛṣṇa as God, to an audience that has never heard about Kṛṣṇa).

He asked, “Why is Kṛṣṇa accepted?” Arjuna says, “My lamentation can’t be alleviated even if I get a kingdom like the whole universe.”

Kṛṣṇa is addressed as Hṛṣīkeśa. God can come (into the world). Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is the Lord of the senses. In the Sanskrit that Prabhupāda quotes the word Govindam also appears and Prabhupāda says this means one who gives pleasure to the cows and the senses … The proprietor of the senses is God (Prabhupāda makes a comparison to the room they are in. He says it is a rented room and he can use it as he likes, as long as he satisfies the landlord). He says, “This is my tape recorder. I use it for my purpose.” Similarly, the senses are used for God purpose. Raw materials (like iron) are given by God.

Kṛṣṇa is smiling. Prabhupāda quotes “Śrī Bhagavān uvāca”. He says Bhagavān means one who possesses all six opulences. (A man in the audience doesn’t understand Prabhupāda saying “opulence”. Prabhupāda pronounces it again.) (He also satisfied the boy who wanted to know if a disciple is in ignorance how does he know who to choose as a spiritual master. After Prabhupāda’s explanation he asked the man if now he understood and he said yes.)

The six opulences are: all wealth, all beauty, all strength, all knowledge, all renunciation, and all fame. One who possesses all six opulences in full is God.

He has all wealth. He married 16,108 wives and gave them each a fabulous palace (this is a “far-out” statement which his audience will have trouble accepting. But Prabhupāda doesn’t hesitate to state it. He remarks people may think this is “Something like stories.”

He says Kṛṣṇa has all beauty. Then he asks, “Have you seen a picture of Kṛṣṇa?” He gets no response from his audience. He asks again, “Have you seen a picture of Kṛṣṇa?” No response. Prabhupāda says that in the battlefield of Kurukṣetra Kṛṣṇa was ninety years old with grown-up children and grandchildren, but He looks just like a boy. He is a new youth which is of the age of 16-24. He says Kṛṣṇa has all knowledge. He refers to the Bhagavad-gītā and says it is read by a great scholar in India, Dr. Radhakrishnan, who is now the President of India. He puts forward the name of Einstein. He says Hitler read the Bhagavad-gītā.

(How did that go over with the American audience?)

You can’t call anyone as Bhagavān.

Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna, “You are speaking learned words but a wise man (a paṇḍita) does not lament. Indirectly He is calling Arjuna a fool. Prabhupāda says, “If I say Mr. Green, what you are doing is not correct or intelligent” he is indirectly calling Mr. Green a fool. A paṇḍita doesn’t lament over the living or the dead. Prabhupāda gives the example of Socrates who believed that the soul was immortal. There is a difference between the body and the soul.

At this point Prabhupāda says, “Now we shall stop.”

******

Prabhupāda is fearless and bold. The way he asserts Kṛṣṇa (who is not known to anyone in the audience as God, “the Supreme Personality of Godhead”). No other swāmīs presented Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā in this way. The amazing thing is that Prabhupāda attracted thousands of disciples by the straight, non-interpreted, presentation of the Bhagavad-gītā.

05:30 P.M.

I am not satisfied with the journaling in this book so far. Each day I have a solid “Prabhupāda-kathā” (either a lecture or interview with a disciple) and an excerpt from Kavi-Karṇapūra’s poem on Caitanya’s life. But as yet I have not expressed my own spiritual longings. I can’t be phony. I can’t write with the pen of blazing fire.

******

I could never understand the Lord in the heart, the Supersoul. I was enlightened to find in the Brahma-saṁhitā, that the pure devotee sees the Śyāmasundara form of the Lord in his heart—the devotee whose eyes are smeared with the ointment of love. I want to know that Lord in the heart, not the four-armed form. Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is the best thing to do. And thinking of the pastimes of the Lord.

Just now I have begun to express my spiritual longings.

Speak to me, Lord. Tell me who I am. Teach me how to love you.

From Gite Stories and Stories in April

pp. 69-72

DIDN’T WANT TO DRAW BLOOD

I was hesitant to come out here and do another story. I don’t want to do one that walks on stilts.

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 horseflies or too much heat and so on. But I will be directly Krsna conscious as soon as possible.

I could spend my whole afternoon finishing the last pages of Hari-sauri’s Transcendental Diary. This is my second reading of it. You stay with Srila Prabhupada in 1976 and endure the pressure vicariously in his shelter as if you are part of his personal party. Harikesa was Prabhupada’s typist and cook, and when he took sannyasa and left to go preaching he felt misgivings at first. He said, “Everyone knows once you leave Srila Prabhupada’s personal party you never come back!” But with the Diary you can read some, put it aside while you do other things, and then come back again. And Hari-sauri does all the work; he stays up late massaging Srila Prabhupada and brunts all the possible difficulties, and he remembers it all in his trusty diary. So it’s not difficult to read alone. But I’ll soon be finished and can’t keep re-reading.

Thus this story must be approached, and as I said, I want to do it in a straightforward way. Yet it’s not a free-for-all Writing Session. It’s a story about the locust high up in the tree way in the woods. I didn’t know that white birches could be so tall.

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). lie 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.

Lord Krsna is the greatest “giant.” But He’s also smaller than the smallest. He’s in the heart of each ant, and even in the stone in a very limited form of consciousness. God is all-pervading. He is also untouched by matter and apart even from the work of His immediate Visnu expansions. He is not menacing to me unless I’m foolish enough to try to menace Him or His creation or His devotees.

We are moving along. 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.

The shade retreated on the patio and it was all exposed to sunlight (not true). A naked man ran by, a horse ran by in Africa and I felt it (not true, not true). I wound up writing this story on stilts after all (that’s for the reader to judge).

Now the purport. 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.

We take turns sitting on the temple vyasasana. Now I am not on one. I’m on a pillow on flagstones, lying back against the stone wall. I’m not facing an audience who will detect a mistake as soon as I make one, and show it in their faces. I’m outdoors, under a clear sky and the only sound is nature’s, wind on summer leaves, locusts, bird songs. 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 the 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. He 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 revising 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 Srlmad-Bhagavatam or Diary and think over what we have said (pray Krsna will teach us to improve and make best use of human life).

From 8 1/2 Days Before Going to India

pp. 103-9

4:06 P.M.

The retreat you thought you had set up in February is shaky—so do you want to fight for it, to go ahead and . . . you are a beggar and you seek a network of places you can use free of charge in different places of the world. This one was offered. Maybe we could get another one, say in U.S.A., in the South. Will someone give us a whole house in which I have a room that I don’t have to share with anyone?
You can arrange for that although you can’t always get it. But then the question is, why do it and what do you write while you are there?

Bleary eyed in afternoon, I sought a half hour in the Bhagavad-gita, that the soul is spread throughout the body by consciousness. No one can destroy the soul. Read it. There’s a life force in the body that makes it live and function. It’s so small, one ten thousandth, etc., and materialists say it doesn’t exist. But Krsna clearly says it exists. This is the spiritual science. Hear about it, read about it, you are bleary-eyed yet you do it.

Then he comes in and says you can have a retreat but you must fix your purpose on it and identify with that purpose. If I were writing say a novel or a book on varnasrama-dharma or gopi-bhava or whatever and I needed a few weeks alone to write, I could say, “Okay, we have nowhere else to go, we are beggars, let’s go there and do our craft.” We read and write somewhere or other, it doesn’t matter where.

But I don’t have that kind of project. I have letters to answer, and Srila Prabhupada’s books to study, and I can do radio shows and other monologues as a writer. And I have to ask myself why am I not at the Hare Krsna world convention with 3,000 other devotees at this time?

You see what this gets into. I would have preferred to just count down my days here, complain mildly about the “drawing stones” and keep focused on “I’m on very last days of retreat after which we’ll leave for India.” Now my mind is pulled out of it. But that’s life. It’s the popping of a bubble one way or another, sooner or later. No one can be happy or comfortable here.

I think of writers. Raymond Carver wrote an essay, “Fires,” about his writing life. He said when he read the statement by Henry Miller that he always had a chair being pulled out from beneath him, he (Carver) very much identified with that. He said he too for years tried to practice the art in trade of writing but had no settled residence, and the chair was always being pulled out from under him. So that happens with me too. A positive way of expressing it is to say that you are always looking for a space where you can get use of a chair and a quiet clean place for a few weeks where you can pursue your work. And your work is to stay apart from temple life yet in touch with the devotees, and write writing sessions.

My health makes it difficult to perform. And my temperament. I get more and more used to this solitude. It grows on you. You seek out more places to do it. It’s what you want but you can’t quite admit it to yourself. Is this really who I am? Yes. Yes. I can live with the scriptures and with writing projects.

The more I write, I am more likely to get into some continuity that will be successful. Keep it up. Don’t lose your nerve.

You were planning at least three seminars in 1996. By the end of January, you will have completed one. Vrndavana will be intense association for you, with many of your disciples there on campus. After 24 days you will leave. That’s when you are scheduled to go to this retreat which has now become shaky. (It’s still on, but one of the hosts can’t make it there. They say we still can go and use it. We plan to bring a typist too.)

Oxen butting heads, eating grass as it gets late.
Truck making some of its last rounds. I presume when
it gets dark they won’t keep coming. And I’m free, free
to write these little notes.
May Lord Krsna give the writer
his space and subject
so he may glorify the Lord.
Krsna teaches us eternal soul
and it’s up to us to imbibe it.
I have nothing more to say right now.

Just give me five more minutes and then I’ll let you nose around, read WS from May, seek an inkling of who you are with your repeated retreats, what you hope to achieve by the constant writing practice. That’s really the question. If you could answer it and say, “I have great steady conviction in the writing process.” Sometimes I’m doing writing practice sessions in which there is no theme or book being created, and I go ahead and do them as bhajana, self-searching, etc. And sometimes I get into a theme and write it out. But in either case, I’m committed to it. And so I just want as much time as possible. Give me a room and relative quiet and I’ll work at it 3-5 hours a day along with similar projects like Radio Shows and maybe poems, and all this done with a daily foundation of reading in Srila Prabhupada’s books with notes. That’s my life for 50% of the time, and then the other half I travel and stay in temples and devotee communities and give lectures. I’m happy with this. Although I fall far short of complete surrender and sacrifice to Krsna, yet I would also fall short if I lived a different kind of life, more actively involved in the institution. I accept the fact that I am this way, solitary often and using my own time in the pursuit of quiet studies, quiet reading, and japa alone. I like it. I offer it to my spiritual master.

Who will tell me, “No, this isn’t good enough?” Krsna Himself and Srila Prabhupada.

I fight to know what’s best for me.

Don’t write anything phony. If you need to talk about this, then do so in your writing session.

Srila Prabhupada said one shouldn’t say to Krsna, “I can’t accept what You are asking me to do. Give me another program instead. Something I like to do.” But Krsna and Srila Prabhupada aren’t asking me to do something else. They are giving me the space. Respond by more study in his books, more focus on Krsna consciousness in writing. But you can do that in your 50-50 program; time on your own and time with the devotees.

I have “earned” the right to live by myself and with myself. I like my company and that of M. and maybe one other friend in a quiet setting for reading and writing. I write the process, what comes.

An artist spends full time in a studio, trying to find himself in art. A writer too. Why not me? Fashion something revolutionary in a quiet way to serve ISKCON. It will come to you because you spend time at your desk and you don’t quit.

Therefore as long as you do have a chair (and a desk lamp and tolerable health and pen, etc.), keep on writing, in health clinic, in Vrndavana, in Gujarat (the village).

Don’t deviate.

Ask the question, “How is this service to Srila Prabhupada? How is this helping the people of the world? Am I sacrificing my interests to serve the interests of Krsna? The examen folks say, “God’s will is generally for us to do more of whatever we are most grateful for or whatever gives us the most life.”

I say Srila Prabhupada approves of my being alone provided I’m active in it and get work done to serve the movement and also I’m happy and fit to be a better sannyasi.

So dear reader, dear snooper into my privacy, this is what happened. A retreat set for February became a little shaky when one of the hosts said she couldn’t be there but we could still go and use the facility. It has made me question more again the whole lifestyle of going to these retreats. You see?

I’ve written of it here. Outwardly I’m sticking to the plan of going there in an obscure place and doing our thing. Inwardly I’m facing more what I actually would do there and how I justify it as a disciple of the world preaching acarya, and as a member of the world preaching movement.

(44 minutes, November 10, Lough Derg house, quiet at this moment in between the truck’s rounds)

from When the Saints Come Marching In

pp. 93-100

Raw Vision

I don’t think I have
to be one of you people
who jingle and jangle.
I want to be an altar
boy. I want to be
a safe person with food and
altar of Radha and Krsna and
Gaura-Nital and
Srila Prabhupada.

Do you care what I do?
What is the subject matter?

A book of people who
stowed away. That was
a gift.
I don’t get them every day.
He has expired. Let’s praise
famous men. And less
famous to a lesser degree.

I asked you a question in my last letter
and you didn’t answer it. How come?
It doesn’t inspire
people, does it?

He asked me not to bother answering his
questions but I researched for his letter to
answer them.

You have to be there for people. But he
says I’ll do it
only if you tell me what’s
actually happening or how can I
advise?

Those friendships thrown on the
junk heap. Find a new one.
Go to a party and act like a
smiling, polite ass, saying things
that “Vaisnavas” say.

All this put-down isn’t
good for your mental health,
let’s hear some counter-talk.
Okay, I’m a swell humble fellow
who worked and
traveled in Dodge Ram vans
all over the U.S. giving lectures
(the same ones).

People smile at me.
They thought I was good,
God loves me.

It’s a place in your heart
where you can live
even if people don’t come around
you’ll be content painting and building a
visionary garden that appears in
Raw Vision magazine
you learn finally how to overcome
a few bad habits.
You know, I used to chew
my fingernails and
masturbate but these habits
are long over.
I used to have a terrific false
ego—which seems less.
So why not more?

Krsna and His Glory

You don’t know what love is
it’s not shallow
it’s the second take

he said I want to get rid of
romance I just want to
empty the garbage

and make little men out of
wood and paint them
and line them in a queue
by a bus stop.

I like to chant sixteen rounds
a day but with all
that Klonapin . . .

See Christ or Krsna in
His glory and He
gives you everything . .

You splurge paint on
the canvas wall. I
met a man from Paris. He said,
“Parlez-vous Hare Krsna!” They
are all over the place thanks to Srila Prabhupada.

No other gets the credit. He’s
the first and best
follow him and you’ll
get the favor of the Lord.

Crescent

Five minutes is all I give you said
the jailer but the pianist
played as well as ever.

The crescent, the moon
in the sky, my own
ploughing through a day—

is there a fax from
an ex-lover
can I get thrown in jail
jam

can I lie to the therapist and say
my trouble is due
to in-fighting by the book
publishers?

What’s the use of lying to
the crescent moon? He’ll
just look cold down
on you with his rabbit if
you’re lucky enough
in Wicklow to even see a moon.

Our so limited activities. There’s
a book of Sanatana Gosvami available
if you have the stamina

and it’s important to
chant on tulasi beads. So my friend
it’s up to you to use your time

and stop churning up so much
wasted grace in your spinning
head.

“I’m making peace with the
Catholic Church,” he said, but
how could you be condemned forever
for wrong acts in just
one lifetime?

In Vedic life, at least a hog
can rise again.

Inner Work

When I fall in love it
will be forever he
sang no one played like
him

imitation. Now play
the people were talking too
loud and you couldn’t
pay attention

to the inner work where
you see yourself for who
you are and you decide

yes, this is who I want
to be, a lover, a rover, I
want to be a player on
a drum.

Doesn’t know if he wants
to be a Vaisnava with
topknot—can’t decide
on girl or boy because
that’s the kind of thing
decided by fate.

Deeper, the inner
person—are you sure
you like to live only
alone?

Do you want to catch
your irritability
your fears
and then decide I
don’t want to be
like that?

I want to be
changed
I want to be
the same
I don’t even want
to try to find out

they were asking themselves
these questions in the
waiting room.

I dove into the surf. I
stepped aside as a
truck roared by.

The Master in the
heart can help
but you’ve got to call out loud
and deep, “Please help me
and all these coaches will have some meaning.”

You tell me in my seat
of soul. No one else can
know for me.

New Assertions

You’re going to see me a tougher
guy. Get lost, mother.

If someone says why don’t you
phone me every day, or he laughs, “Ha!
You wrote a book about a mouse?”
I’ll say, “May mouse turds drop on you!”

My assertive new will
will be used in Krsna’s service. I say,
“Sorry, he can’t travel. Sorry, he’s not home.
He’s out in the garden.” Sorry, he’s sitting back in
his kickback chair. You
won’t find him on the
street or the plane
or the festival.

He writes books.
Oh! Look! Here’s
his God, beautiful
Krsna, the Lord of all.
So why bother about me?
Focus on Govinda.

Feedback

He dared to tell you what
medicine is best, what Higher Power
and when to relax.

He says you are a worrier
and you need B2 shots.
He tells you enter the
Twelve Step program and do TM
biofeedback.

Why should we listen to
him? What right has he got
to tell me

the best formula for success
in life? Don’t tell your secret.
You dig me wrong. Take two.
Take three. It’s always
the Lord of Lords
in bowers
the supreme power
as a milker
of cows
just a child.

Sunday Mass

I want to be explicit
there was no way to get
home clear:
No free sandwiches.

You have to pay for it.
I am the one and only
person who has to decide
and live within my writing shed
no one understands

I don’t cry for you, I
don’t grieve. I’m just
detached. I feel good

as I plough the grass
there is no home owner
in these suburbs as
happy as me.

I live in an atmosphere
of just fooling around. You

go to Sunday Mass and I give the
Looney Tunes sermon.

They understand the
story of Krsnadasa who
reconciled his guru as acarya
and flesh and blood

and who didn’t want
any woman on his back—
get them off!

This is the toughest call
but you can hack it if
you use your paring knife

and stand like a soldier
in the line.

He got it right in
Hackensack—all Catlicks
at Mass. But the masses
are in the streets
or at home with
TVs.

As for me, I’m free
chained to you.

– Newsletter join link –

<< Free Write Journal #390

Free Write Journal #392 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

Read more »

The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

Read more »

Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

Read more »

Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

The post Free Write Journal #391 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook
2. Progresso
3. From Imperfection, Purity Will Come About
4. The Week Before Gaura Purnima
5. Begging for the Nectar of the Holy Name
6. Passing Places, Eternal Truths
7. Vraja Mandala Lament: A Writer’s Parikrama

ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 4)

The spiritual master knows the science of chanting. He is like a doctor to the ailing disciple and prescribes this chanting Hare Krsna so that the disciple can return to his normal health. By health we don’t mean bodily health, but the eternal state of health. The devotee can again attain his eternal spiritual body and be with Krsna in the spiritual world. That can be done by this chanting. So at this stage you have to have full faith in the order of the spiritual master and chant Hare Krsna, whether you are feeling ecstasy or whatever.

******

Understand that Krsna is His name and that He has come to you in His name as a great kindness: “O my Lord, You have so kindly made approach to You easy by Your holy name.” And then go to that person, Nama Prabhu, whom you have offended, who is the only one who can save you, and ask forgiveness—by chanting. “There is nothing in the fourteen worlds but the chanting of Hare Krsna,” says Bhaktivinoda Thakura. Admitting I am chanting poorly—please consider me fallen before You—I beg to be reformed by chanting Hare Krsna.

******

Devotional service in the Krsna consciousness movement affords us many facilities to serve Krsna aside from the chanting of the holy names. This fact doesn’t diminish the glory of the holy name, but enhances it, because the chanting is a key part of the whole devotional way of life. I had read about Christian monks who practiced solitary prayer, but they had no prasadam or Deity worship or lively krsna kirtana. Nor did they have the benefit of such great, nectarean acaryas of the mellows of love of God like Sukadeva Gosvami, the six Gosvamis, and Srila Prabhupada. For the Christian monks the practice of chanting was a clinging to the name in a world they rather impersonally viewed as all illusion.

******

We also must utterly depend on the holy name, but at the same time our restless natures can be purified by the soothing rays of darsana of Their Lordships, Sri Sri Radha-Damodara, Sri Sri Radha-Govinda, Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai, and Lord Jagannatha. As Bhaktivinoda Thakura writes, “By taking the Lord’s prasadam our senses are controlled . . . whenever I take the remnants of prasadam I experience a new life.” Similarly, Srila Prabhupada has said we require both diet and medicine: the medicine is chanting Hare Krsna, and the diet is prasadam. And the perfection of the eyes is to see the Deity, and the perfection of the head is to bow before the Deity of the Lord.

******

We are fully engaging our body, mind, and senses in our pure devotional service. Srila Prabhupada writes in The Nectar of Devotion:

In the Skanda Purana it is said that those who are attached to ritualistic activities, the four orders of social life and the four orders of spiritual life are considered devotees. But when devotees are actually engaged in service to the Lord directly, these must be bhagavatas, pure devotees.

******

Srila Prabhupada has also informed us in The Nectar of Devotion that the chance to engage in devotional service is beyond liberation: “A person who is constantly engaged in chanting the holy name and who feels transcendental pleasure, being engaged in devotional service, is never given just mukti.” (Adi Purana)

******

It is a cause for real rejoicing that Srila Prabhupada has given us the full spiritual life in which to chant Hare Krsna. Dressed as a Vaisnava, with only devotees as friends, we chant. With expert guidance of a bona fide spiritual master, we chant Hare Krsna. While living in the temple (Vaikuntha), we chant. While traveling in a van on sankirtana, we chant Hare Krsna. Before and after seeing the Deity, while taking caranamrta, worshiping Tulasi, hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam (the topmost science of God), we chant Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. And we are chanting the supreme name of God—KRSNA. Thousands of other names of God equal only one name of Krsna.

******

All glories to Srila Prabhupada! All glories to the sankirtana movement! We do not have to chant alone in desperate doubt. We have the support of enormous armies in fighting off the demons. We are not chanting in a world of void. We have been given the full manifestation of spiritual reality in which to prosecute the dharma of the age.

******

Then, rise tiny spirit soul, in gratefulness, security, and protection—and chant, chant, chant. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Excerpts From GN Press

From Progresso: A Ten-Day Vrata Seeking Krsna Consciousness

pp. 35-39

Preach To Me

Maybe you shouldn’t strain yourself right now. As for artistic theory, you’re somewhat on your own. Just be careful to always keep it in the realm of service. Don’t do anything detrimental to your Krsna consciousness (or anyone else’s). That’s all the preaching I have on that.
I’ve got a headache and I’m not able to work, so
please tell me about Krsna .… Didn’t Krsna have a headache once too?

No, you don’t understand. Krsna said He had a headache. One of the ISKCON artists once painted that lila, portraying Ksna as actually feeling pain. Prabhupãda corrected her. Actually, Krsna wanted to prove the love of the Vraja gopis so that all other devotees could see their bhava as topmost. You know the story. Krsna said He had a headache, and when His servants asked how it could be cured He said He needed the dust from the feet of the Vaisnavas. His servants then went to some of the most prominent Vaisnavas and asked them for their foot dust. The great devotees were afraid to give dust. They thought they would go to hell. When the Lord then told His servants to ask the gopis, the gopis immediately offered the dust from their feet. “Here! Take it at once so Krsna may be relieved of His headache.”
The servants were amazed after seeing the response of other Vaisnavas, so they asked, “Don’t you know you could go to hell for putting the dust of your feet on God’s head?”

The gopis replied, “Then we will go to hell, but let Krsna feel not the least inconvenience. Give Him this foot dust.”
Is there a connection between that foot dust and the candana we use for tilaka?
Maybe.
I don’t know how much more time we can pass in this way with both of us feeling so weak.
We’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve lost the thread today.

…. Issa wrote a haiku to a snail, something like, “Go ahead, little fellow, Mt. Fuji is ahead.” Or the Puranic account of the sparrow trying to empty the ocean.
Progress. I want to make it, but I don’t know what else to do. Time is limited. All I can do is make repeated attempts, like the artist who drew “a thousand views of Mt. Fuji.” Another poem, another page, another lecture, another day, more rounds. I know nothing more than this.
“I’m going backwards,” someone said yesterday. He was afraid, maybe due to offenses.

Progress means diminishing sense gratification, minimizing eating, sleeping, mating, and defending, feeling free of attachment, fear, and anger, developing attraction to the holy name. How to move forward? “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Those who push themselves forward will be humiliated and then make progress. The murderer makes progress when he is killed by the state. The sincere devotee who is attached to money makes progress when Krsna removes his money and leaves him with no other shelter.

Is old age progress? How can a snail expect to scale the highest mountain? How can a dwarf jump up to the moon? You know all these things, Lord, and I must wait for You to signal when and how I can make progress in bhakti. When You make it clear, as when the deckhands wave that our turn has come to board the ferry, I pray my engine won’t stall but that I’ll go instantly forward. Oh, preach to me.

From From Imperfection, Purity Will Come About: Writing Sessions while Reading Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s Saranagati

pp. 14-18

The first section in Śaraṇāgati is titled “Dainya,” humility. This section closely follows a section in the Third Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam where the human embryo prays to God:

He is unlimited, but He is perceived in the repentant heart. . . . I am separated from the Supreme Lord because of my being in this material body . . . although I am essentially spiritual. . . . My dear Lord, by Your causeless mercy I am awakened to consciousness, although I am only ten months old. . . . there is no way to express my gratitude but to pray with folded hands. . . . Therefore, without being agitated anymore, I shall deliver myself from the darkness of nescience with the help of my friend, clear consciousness. Simply by keeping the lotus feet of Lord Viṣṇu in my mind, I shall be saved from entering the womb of many mothers for repeated birth and death.

—Bhag. 3.31.13-14, 18, 21

The unborn child sees the Lord in his heart and promises to always remember Him. He suffers terribly and doesn’t want to experience another birth. But as soon as he is born, he is in the hands of people who know neither his physical nor his spiritual needs.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura describes an entire life in the first song, stanzas 4-7:

“As a fondled son in the laps of my relatives, I passed my time smiling and laughing. My parents’ affection helped me to forget the pangs of birth, and I thought the world was very nice.

“Day by day I grew and soon began playing with other boys. Shortly my power of understanding emerged. I read and studied my lessons incessantly.

“Traveling from place to place, proud of my education, I grew wealthy and maintained my family with undivided attention. O Lord Hari, I forgot You!

“Now in old age, Bhaktivinode is sad. He weeps. I failed to worship You, O Lord, and instead, passed my life in vain. What will be my fate now?”

Under the spell of māyā, most people don’t think of these activities as a waste of time but as the goal of life. Bhaktivinode Thakura’s life appears successful—he has affectionate parents, a nice world view, a taste for his studies and the competitive edge, wealth, the ability to travel, devotion to his family. “Why is he complaining?” the materialist wants to know.

“O Lord Hari, I forgot You!”

He is speaking through the eyes of scripture. A human life is wasted without God consciousness. It becomes no better than the life of an animal (śrama eva hi kevalam). Even a half-intelligent person can taste the bitterness of his or her own experiences. And when old age approaches, what is left? “What will be my fate now?”

If, therefore, the living entity again associates with the path of unrighteousness, influenced by sensually minded people engaged in the pursuit of sexual enjoyment and the gratification of the palate, he again goes to hell as before.

—Bhag. 3.31.32

In youth, the life of scholarship increases our hopes. We didn’t know anything as children, but then we discovered books, writers, philosophers, poets, psychologists, political scientists, the physicists, art, culture ….

. . . “Confidently, I spent my time in the pleasures of mundane learning and never worshiped Your lotus feet, O Lord . . . . Reading on and on, my hopes grew, for I considered material knowledge to be life’s true path” (Śaraṇāgati , 1.2.12).

Knowledge-acquiring becomes a passion when the student tries to glean all he can from books and teachers. The rewards may not be as intense as those gained by other pursuits, but learning produces prestige, power, and pride. It also produces intellectual snobbery.

Eventually, the scholar (jñānī) finds that material knowledge cannot answer the crucial questions: “Who am I? What is the cause of creation? Why is there so much suffering and how can it be overcome?” And what can knowledge do to stop death? The scholar meets contradictions and differing opinions wherever he turns.

As stated in the Mahābhārata, “Dry arguments cannot give us the truth, and neither can the philosophers, because they always differ.” This differing nature of the world’s teachers is an illusion created by māyā for the purpose of further bewildering the Godless thinkers. This is described in the Haṁsa-guhya prayers of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:

Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the all-pervading Supreme Personality of Godhead, who possesses unlimited transcendental qualities. Acting from within the cores of hearts of all philosophers, who propagate various views, He causes them to forget their own souls while sometimes agreeing and sometimes disagreeing among themselves. Thus He creates within this material world a situation in which they are unable to come to a conclusion. I offer my obeisances unto Him.

—Bhag. 6.4.31

Bhaktivinoda Thakura concludes that material knowledge makes a man an ass. His future is bleaker than that of an ordinary man; he is more entangled and confused. The Īśopaniṣad declares,

“Those who engage in the culture of nescient activities shall enter into the darkest region of ignorance. Worse still are those engaged in the culture of so-called knowledge” (Mantra Nine).

In his purport to this mantra, Śrīla Prabhupāda states:

“Advancement of learning by a godless people is as dangerous as a valuable jewel on the hood of a cobra. The cobra decorated with such a valuable jewel is more dangerous than one which is not decorated. . . . In Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya, the advancement of education by a godless people is compared to decorations on a dead body.”

I was thinking about this writing this morning. I made a resolution to keep writing, but I realized that at any moment, my peace and ease could be violently torn away. I felt this in a small way today while walking and listening to tapes. I made a gesture with my hand and it caught the wire that leads to the Walkman. Suddenly the earplugs were jerked out of my ears. It didn’t hurt, but it was sudden, accidental—the sound was gone. It produced a mental shock as I humbly returned the earplugs to my ears.

That was just a small inconvenience—not even serious—but with the same suddenness, I could lose my life. I try to write with that in mind. Every moment is special, and when you pass the fifty-year mark, every moment becomes more precious. I still haven’t been able to write a profound epic, but at least I am able to stop and breathe prayers and to remind myself that I am writing as one who is about to die for those who are also about to die. Don’t waste time. We are all looking for earnestness. We are all looking for that feeling that will connect us to Kṛṣṇa.

From June Bug

pp. 4-10

May 30, 8 A.M.

We’re in rush-hour traffic coming into the Bronx at 230th Street. Stop and start. M. is driving the car, Kirtana Rasa is chanting japa in the front seat and I’m in the back with packages. “It’s A Woman Thing” says the billboard for Virginia Slims cigarettes. I wanted to write; it took mental effort to get out the notebook. But I can’t think of much to say except what I see-dirty city trees in bloom, the long crawl of traffic ahead, my tendency to exaggerate, to worry … Imagine if things went wrong. I want to go within to tell you something Krsna conscious but that’s not possible. Kool. Art. Yankee Stadium.

******

Relax, man. At Queens apartment I spent morning and afternoon answering last mail. Agni dasa came by and gave me a massage. M. phoned British Airways and asked if their flight tomorrow morning was leaving on time. “Of course,” she replied. “Sometimes we even leave early.” “Tragi-comic gifts” of Alice Walker’s poetry says New York Times on back of her book. Kirtana Rasa, who drove us here, stopped only briefly at the apartment and then drove off. “Escape from New York,” he said. “There was a movie by that name.” Nandimukhi said the skyline of buildings is like fists raised against the sky. It becomes daunting to preach here. They are duty-bound.

Now will you be able to roll along? Forget the performance and be genuine in some way.

Hare Krsna. I was born in Queens in this lifetime. Guess what? A mail package won’t come to me until a month from now. I tell you, man, in June, the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Eire, or in mostly Northern Ireland, in a house overlooking the island and the lakes …

Can I prove to the government of Ireland immigration department that (1) Stephen Guarino and Satsvarupa dasa Goswami are the same person, and (2) he is an author of books? M. says it will be easy because Irish are lax about that sort of thing and will give no trouble to an American who wants to claim residency in the Emerald Isle. Who am I? Can I prove? Also, I own the van, although I don’t drive it.

******

In the vase on the window sill, purple pholx and goldenrod. Outside, people were lounging on front step—women in T-shirts, kids rollerskating, many “minority races,” Muslim, Oriental, black, Indian, Carib, plain vanilla, Hare Krsna in this one looking out.

Four big suitcases all tied up and ready to go. I asked him, M., how we plan to carry them to the ticket counter. We may resort to hiring a red cap. How much do you pay them? Pholx, goldenrod. Escape from New York.

May 31

Queens apartment

Answered last batch of mail, but I wasn’t up to any early morning writing or reading in Srila Prabhupada’s books. Think as you travel, how you may shape this June or let it flow in a shape provided by time and events. We are not the doers. Material energy works, or Krsna works in the case of His devotees. You may also do something. You may pray for mercy and guidance. Especially as you get swallowed up in the mouth of the whale (time, death, where do we go next?).

Write and be alive in Krsna consciousness one way or another today.

******

We’re going on that Concorde flight. That’s because we purchased round-trip British Airways tickets in Bombay and since they wouldn’t sign our tickets from NYC to Dublin over to Aer Lingus, they gave us the royal treatment, so-called: Concorde to London and from there, Aer Lingus to Dublin. Embarrassing to ride in our khadi cloth and beggars’ demeanor in such a high-speed luxury airship? I don’t think so. Just accept it and don’t mind what others may think.

Today is the last day of May (said the counter
lady to the people next to us).
“It’s hard to believe,” the elderly woman replied.

You will be in England and then Ireland … you have a chance to write there. Pray to Krsna even if it hurts. Ask Him to help you advance in spiritual life.

See your lack of advancement.

The British Airways man cannot print out our boarding passes from London to Dublin. He said, “You’ll have to check in again in London.” But Madhu is pressing him to do it, to find a way, to make the machine work. much like any jet interior, but seats are only two across. Port hole windows are smaller. Concorde magazine twice uses the word “Discrete” (their spelling) to describe the interior decoration in the cabin and the quality of services in the waiting lounge. I like “discreet”.

Last look at World Trade building.

“When will you return?” asked Hari-kirtana, who drove us to the airport. (Twice the speed of sound! Altitude: 57,000 feet.)

“Next spring.”

In the unlikely event …

The Queen of England rode in one of these here things at least three times.

3:30 P.M. British time

Flying at 340 mph, I’d like to pass, but the aisles are blocked with food service. M. is filling out documents for my entry into Ireland and my application for residence there. I may have to show them when passing through immigration in London. The application says I’m a “religious writer” and Manu dasa, “director of ISKCON Dublin,” is inviting me to go there to reside and pursue my religious writing career. I am single. I am known as both Satsvarupa dasa Goswami and as Stephen Guarino. We are applying for one-year residency. If I don’t get it, I don’t care. I could always return to the U.S. and live in someone’s house or apartment and write there. But Madhu has his new van and we think it’s better for independence to wander around the E.E.C. countries.

Anyway, I hope it goes well. Real question is what to write. I don’t think I can write all of June just on this theme that I want to reside in Ireland etc. But that’s an interesting starter.

From The Week Before Gaura Purnima

pp. 32-35

On Thursday morning, only three days before Gaura-Furnina, the sannyasi spoke on vande sri krsna-caitanya-nityanandau sahoditau (Cc. Adi 1.2). Since the temple Deities were Gaura-Nitai, he told stories of Srila Prabhupada visiting ISKCON Gaura-Nitai temples in Caracas, Miami, and Atlanta.

“Srila Prabhupada said on his arrival there,

You are very fortunate. These two Prabhus, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Lord Nityananda, are with us tonight. . . . Parama-koruna pahu duijana . . . He is so kind. So take shelter of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and be happy.”

Krsnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami says the first wonder is that the two Lords appear simultaneously. The second wonder is that They dispel the darkness within the core of the heart. In the question period after the lecture, Dhama dasa, who was translating, asked, “If we worship Radha and Krsna as They are in Vaikuntha, how will that ever develop into the spontaneous stage of Vrndavana?”

The visiting sannyasi replied that awe and reverence (the Vaikuntha mood) toward Radha and Krsna was prescribed by Srila Prabhupada for our temple Deity worship. This refers to punctuality, gorgeous dress and food, saying prayers, cleanliness, bowing down, etc. It’s good for us. We cannot imitate Sanatana Gosvami and put the Krsna murti in a tree and give Him only stale capatis. Be confident that the way Srila Prabhupada taught us to worship Radha-Krsna is the most direct way to attain Goloka Vrndavana. In Nectar of Devotion and KRSNA book, we hear of the spontaneous mood of Krsna’s madhurya pastimes. Eventually, by devotional service, we will enter vraja-bhakti, not Vaikuntha.

Someone asked, “You said that we should only hear about Krsna from Srila Prabhupada and not from mundane scholars. But what about hearing about Radha and Krsna from Vaisnavas besides Prabhupada?”

The sannyasi replied that hearing from others was risky. No one is as wise and experienced as Srila Prabhupada in preaching to Westerners. “The stakes are high and we shouldn’t gamble,” said the sannyasi but Dhama dasa couldn’t comprehend the idiom, “stakes are high.”

“It’s like in gambling. If you bet a high sum of money, then if you lose, you go way down.”

“Oh!”

“If you mistake Radha-Krsna for ordinary boy and girl and imitate Them, you will lose everything.”

The farmer next to the temple has a high-powered hose attached to his tractor. He parks the tractor, aims the pipe, and a hundred-foot-long arc of white water gushes out high over his plowed and seeded field. The earth and olive seeds within soak it up. The hose slowly arcs from left to right. The farmer stands and watches. Whoever passes watches the power in the arc of water, its spray underneath, the darkening of the earth from dry tan to wet brown.

…… In the question and answer session, he picked up each slip of paper and read it. Without his eyeglasses, he could see only a smudge of lines. If he were an airline pilot, he wouldn’t be able to read any gauges. Soon you have to retire if you get something like a brain cyst, as one man here has, who is not even old. Life is no joke. One thinks,

If that happens to me, that I must drop all other activities and be consumed by disease or face the end quickly by another way, I hope I can ‘retire’ in the sannyasa sense of the word and simply chant like Bhaktivinoda Thakura in his very last days when he stopped outer communication and entered samadhi. But be realistic, how can you expect the same last stage as a great saint?” So until then, be busy, friends, with your good work. And be sure your work is connected to Krsna and guru and is the best effort.

The visiting sannyasi answered a question, “How can we keep friendships amid quarrels and problems?” He replied that we should consider the devotee as a person in a solitary room early in the morning. He does his sadhana for a few hours and then opens the door and faces the world. He has gained inner strength to face the problems. He is an atmarama (to some degree) and can be charitable. Such persons, who first perform their own sadhana, can then lead others and communicate or absorb the shocks of life together.

Someone asked about prayer. The sannyasi wished he had a life of prayer, but he answered anyway from the general tradition. He said, “Chanting is the best prayer, two and a half hours a day at least.”

Someone asked, “In the Bhagavad-gita, Krsna says His devotee will never perish. What does this mean exactly?” The sannyasi said it doesn’t mean that a devotee never loses a battle to the demons. But finally, the demon dies and the devotee dies. The demon is then vanquished and the devotee’s good acts make him triumph over death. Srila Prabhupada once compared ISKCON devotees to Jatayu, who was defeated and killed by Ravana but who was brought back to Godhead by Lord Rama.

During Friday night, while the sannyasi tried to sleep, he sometimes woke and heard noises. He heard voices outside on the road and passing cars. He heard a door creaking open and shut. He heard someone clear his throat and he knew that was his assistant, Narahari, returned from India. Finally, the visiting sannyasi fell into desired sleep. lie thought, “I hope I’m well enough to go on harinama Saturday night because they are expecting me to go.”

From Begging for the Nectar of the Holy Name

pp. 61-66

6:45 A.M.

The cantankerous typewriter has been set up for my use. If it gets too cantankerous, I can always go back to the pen.

There is no way to get at the truths of Krsna consciousness. They descend from the Lord and the ragatmika devotees as blessings. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura appeared in this world to tell us the intimate pastimes of Radha and Krsna which were not disclosed in Srimad-Bhagavatam (although whatever he said was based on the Bhagavatam). Visvanatha Cakravarti is both a recipient of mercy and a giver of mercy. Each of us can be like that, at least to a small degree. We have already received the Hare Krsna mantra from His Divine Grace, and we have already received transcendental knowledge from the Bhaktivedanta purports. We are already recipients of mercy; we are now bound to give mercy to others.

O Lord of the universe, O soul of the universe, kindly deliver us from the fiery brahmastra of the enemy which is hurtling toward us. Kindly break our tie of affection for our material kinsmen. Let our devotion to You flow like the Ganges in monsoon unto the Bay of Bengal.

This van is like an asana. I want to write something Krsna conscious, but I don’t want to be artificial. When I see a tree swaying in the wind, if it does not remind me of a gopi dancing for the pleasure of Krsna, then I should not claim that it does. O Lord of my heart, please teach me. Let the teachings of Krsna consciousness attract this conditioned soul and please allow me to participate in the sankirtana movement.

O Lord of the universe, who plays the flute in the Sarad season and attracts the gopis to join him, and who, when the gopis are assembled tells them, “Go home now”—may that Lord give me a drop of mercy by revealing the nature of the holy names. I am chanting and I think it is the best occupation. But You know that it is also a sleepy desert for me. I beg for water, for the inspiration to chant in the mood of service. I beg to be able to go out from here and preach as one who loves to tell the glories of harer nama. This is my request, written in the Renault van on an Italian typewriter keyboard, while listening to the rain on the roof. All glories to Prabhupada.

10:30 A.M.

“Some bear only the burden, others appreciate the true worth of things” (Nama-bhajana, Bhaktivinoda Thakura).

Sitting on the windowsill, averaging 8:40 sec-onds. Not bad, considering that stereotype of “good rounds” in popular ISKCON. But my mind went quickly through my pre-Krsna conscious past in this lifetime, combining persons and events fancifully as we do in a dream, like an unconscious playwright . . . Was that a flicker of remorse for all the time wasted? Was that a beginning of compassion for all the people I knew, for my mother and father? But if I was thinking something noble, was it because I am “supposed” to? Is this a Western mental disease—that we always play games and then catch ourselves at playing games? Is there no end to it, no genuine moment before it is all destroyed?

I think this disease comes from the advertising industry and from low-class comedians. Comedians in our own families—cynical older sisters and strong-armed fathers who consider any deviancy from the norm as wimpish.

This conditioning cripples me when I try to range deep inside simply with the maha-mantra. If you were born in Bengal or the Vrndavana area, it might be different. But I have seen some strange cases from those areas too. It’s Kali-yuga. Where there are no good trees, a castor tree is a big tree.

Krsna, did You once hear my chanting, or does my rasping voice disturb Your play?

Snapshot

Srila Prabhupada in the Radha-Damodara court¬yard, walking away from his veranda rooms. Those historic rooms! It is about 1971. Malati dasi is there, and Syamasundara, Rsi-kumara (with a blanket wrapped around him and chanting japa), Subala Swami with a cane like Prabhupada’s. Prabhupada is looking down at four-year-old Sarasvati, who is looking off somewhere—to her future?

Srila Prabhupada in the sunlight, his foot stepping on an inscribed marble plaque, his cane . . . I cannot see you, Srila Prabhupada, but still I see your figure in photo, that same rust-colored sweater, the candana on your forehead, the reddish socks, bead-bag, orange marigold garland. Your hair is gray at the back of your head and your complexion is dark and golden.

Your disciples want to care for you, they are look¬ing to your needs. But are we ready to surrender to your heavy order to work and sweat it out in Vrndavana as a manager of cement construction? Can we stay celibate? Can we stay in your movement?

Still, we share the desire to care for you tenderly, to watch where you step, to bring you water to drink, to cook, to ask about Krsna in Vraja. It’s cold there now. You are looking down . . . I am no better than the others. This photo helps me to remember that.

Subala, I too want to be a babaji in Vraja. I know what you meant. But Prabhupada wanted us to work under his direction. It must have been hard for you back then during the construction of Krsna-Balarama Mandira. Now his followers have more room to serve in our own ways—now that the Krsna-Balarama Mandira has been built and Prabhupada has returned to his nitya-lila. We are left with his order to love him by cooperating together. There is room for everyone now. Together we can keep Prabhupada’s movement vital.

From Passing Places, Eternal Truths: Travel Writings 1988-96

pp. 163-66

A TRIP TO SPAIN

I Want You

“Today no poem” says a little
Chinese laundryman inside
my brain. Who is he to shut down
on me like that?
I want in.
I knock on the door some more.

Maya Angelou, sixty-year-old
black lady poet of whom James Baldwin said,
“Sister Maya has been there and back”—I looked at
her poems for a warmup and a Kerouac page, but he
had written an ambitious portrait of a Sunday
on MacDougal
Street in Greenwich Village. I wanted something
quiet and indoors
because that’s where I am—and Krsna conscious.
Well you’re not gonna find it in
Maya Kerouac.
If you find the opposite, will it drive
you running to the Bhagavatam?

Just find yourself, what you want, and
the words will come. I want you—
I want you, freedom. I want
love of God as my reality, at least the way you
can look up at the moon. You can’t
possess it but at least you see it and
you’re enchanted. Or now the blue dawn
of late April full of Italian birds in
this neighborhood. I’m sorry I don’t know them
the way I knew the birds in Pennsylvania,
but I’m glad I’m here out of reach.

Out of reach of the long arm
of the law
the institution,
the botheration.

Tell it man, go ahead.
I just want you—solitude, love of
being alone on a schedule of my own,
busy all day and precious lines coming out
arriving at Krsna consciousness by the quiet method,
desperate for it, asking quietly . . .
Then giving up that pose and
just reading and writing.

When the Yaksas tried to scare
Dhruva Maharaja, the sages assembled and said,
“Don’t fear these tigers and lions running
at you and trunks of bodies falling from
the sky. The ocean’s roar is an illusion—
chant the holy names and you’ll be free.”
Dhruva did it.
Hear it and apply. I want that.

Nice Things

There’s a new edition of Prabhupada’s book,
The Path of Perfection, with Bharadvaja’s painting
on the cover, Krsna speaking to Uddhava.
I wonder who Krsna is looking at
as He turns His face to the side,
not at Uddhava who is on one knee
with folded palms before the Lord.
I’m looking to enter this “chronicle
of an historic series of talks by Srila Prabhupada”
about yoga, bhakti-yoga.

Another nice thing—plan to go to Mayapur.
The blue sky lightening.
Anticipation of breakfast, which I take
in a restrained amount. Chyavan Prash and bananas,
hot milk, a little cereal.
The red pen and all colors of pens.
To know I have been up early
and wrote and read with rest ahead.
For Krsna there’s no anxiety. We
make trouble for ourselves. He can
get us out if we only turn to Him.
Stop being envious and avaricious.
Work against the void and Mayavadi doctrines
that make people believe there’s no God.
You live with God and that’s
the proof.
First prove it to yourself.

In four days we’ll travel
to Mexico in our blue Olds,
to Puerto Rico in our hat . . .
No really, in our really white
Renault Master van, our truly
hidden purpose bulging out,
all day Monday Nara will pack and
Tuesday cook for three days on the road—I
can’t chew tough bread crusts but
if you dip ’em into hot tea I do
okay. Two hours daily I enter Vaikuntha
in reading. Tepid japa. No matter, the
holy name is kind even to offenders.

Say the truth—we want to get away.
Days like this, even if I’m shy and
too uptight to express it, are very nice and
liberating in their own way. It’s the best
I can be Krsna conscious right now
so I’m not knocking it. I’ll read
what the Bhagavad-gita says
and what Srila Prabhupada spoke on ayur
harati vai pumsam, any Srimad-Bhagavatam
lecture he
gave ending, “Thank you very much.” I’ll
pray to be with him knowing I’m
always a fool before my spiritual master—
and before you too.

from Vraja Mandala Lament: A Writer’s Parikrama

pp. 157-61

WE COME TO BE HUMBLED

Yasoda-kunda

Here Mother Yasoda churned butter and washed pots. (I remember Madhu washing pots at our hand pump in Vrndavana. When he was finished, they would all shine silvery, and he stacked them dripping wet.) Mother Yasoda had many servants, yet she liked to do certain duties herself. While churning butter “she sang the childhood pastimes of Krsna and enjoyed thinking of her son.”
Can we think in the vatsalya mood? There have been sentimental paintings, yes, and they clutter the markets at Loi Bazaar—a too chubby Bombay-cinema version of child Krsna and His ma—the artists’ conceptions colored by their own limitations. Perhaps they paint in ways they know will sell, but they do not really capture Krsna. Baby Krsna steals the hearts of those in the vatsalya mood, and every bhakta worth his name bows down to Him. “To this Supreme Lord, Sri Damodara, whose belly is bound not with ropes but with His mother’s pure love, I offer my obeisances.” (Sri Damodarastaka, Verse 2)

Breathing a sigh from my nostrils as if I’m a tired workhorse. It’s 3:45 P.M. and I’m still feeling all right. That sigh is my measure of how far I have come against how far I have to go. Everyone I know sighs from time to time in the midst of their work, and then they move on. “Are you sighing for Killarney?” my mother used to say. In those days, I was sighing all right, wondering where I was going and trying to decipher the meaning of life.
Thank you, Srila Prabhupada, for saving me and so many other boys and girls. Now when we sigh, it’s because we want to attain bhakti. We may even skirt the borders of bhakti-yoga and sigh for past lives or for “what might have been” or other illusion, although we pay little attention to such sighing. We sigh to serve you. We recall your kindness with a sigh. The old days with Prabhupada, the future . . . the spiritual Killarney, Vraja, the old sod to which we aspire. Sighing for Vrndavana at Yasoda-kunda. When will that day be mine?

Radha-Madana-Mohana, Radha-Govinda, Radha-Gopinatha

Srila Prabhupada calls these the “three functional Deities” of Gaudiya Vaisnavas. The original Deities left Vrndavana when the Muslims destroyed the temples. On Their way to Jaipur, They stopped here.
I want to stop here too. I don’t want to go farther than Krsna went. When we reach the ultimate, we are satisfied; svamin krtartho ‘smi varam na yace. When we discuss prayojana only theoretically (loving Gopinatha as the goal), then we may go on to something else. That going on is not to something higher. Actually, in that case, our going on means we never reached the goal.

Hold on to this minute:
if you had wings
if you had an imagination,
could you go higher than God?
But it all comes from Him.
Pray for Krsna’s
descending mercy.
Please stick me here
as an atom at Your lotus feet.
Loving Your infinity.
Roaming the
universes, we are stuck
in birth, old age and death.
O Madana-mohana, O guru
teaching us,
please let us awaken to our attraction
for you. Krsna,
You are our Lord. O Govinda,
please give us Your service.
Let us work at abhidheya day and night.
O Gopinatha, Lord of the gopis, player of the flute,
O You who steals our precious hearts,
please detain us, stop us, give us a
glimpse of the goal.

When I first went to Swamiji’s room and bought his Srimad-Bhagavatam, he asked me to sit down. “I can’t,” I said, “I have to go to work.” He smiled and let me go, and I returned to ask for shelter soon enough. Then he went off—first to San Francisco, then India.

Let’s stop here or go on, but I don’t want to miss You, my Lord. I don’t have more important things to do. I don’t have a better book to write than the one You want, filled with faithfulness to You. Please indicate to me where You want me to go, what You want me to say. Hari, guru, Vaisnava, Bhagavata, and Gita—all glories to these.

I do and I don’t remember. Time runs clockwise around my Seiko watch, set five minutes fast. It glows in the dark and gets me up early enough. Don’t answer mail, no phone, no pony express or fax. Just light from lamps to write my prayer: “Prabhupada, please see that I always serve you. Please see that I always remember and appreciate the way you argued, your certainty. You have made me live. You have given me the truth of Krsna consciousness.”

Kids are walking on Brislin Road. The sky is darkening. The flying-saucer hum of the highway is building—Hummmm . . .We yatris are also humming. We stand as a group, an angelic choir, with our palms pressed together in namaskara, our minds humming with activity. Maybe tonight another yatri (not me) will speak his day’s impressions and then you’ll see for yourself. As the civil surgeon in Calcutta said to the judge, “Your honor, I have examined many patients, and in my opinion, everyone is more or less crazy.

– Newsletter join link –

<< Free Write Journal #389

Free Write Journal #391 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

The post Free Write Journal #390 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook
2. Cc Asraya
3. Given Time (poems)
4. Readings in Vedic Literature
5. One Hundred Prabhupda Poems
6. Journal and Poems (Volume 3)
7. The Delaware Diaries (Volume 1)

ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 3)

In the Padma Purāṇa it is stated that even a person whose life is completely sinful will be completely protected by the Lord if he simply surrenders unto Him. So, it is accepted that one who surrenders unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead becomes freed from all sinful reactions. And even when a person becomes an offender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, he can still be delivered simply by taking shelter of the holy names of the Lord.

—The Nectar of Devotion

******

The Nectar of Devotion says that even if you offend the Supreme Personality of Godhead, you can still be delivered by the holy name. So what’s the difference? The name is a very merciful appearance of Kṛṣṇa. So easily you can associate with Kṛṣṇa. Nothing special is required—no austerities or rituals. The name is Kṛṣṇa; however, just as Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa, but a very, very merciful Kṛṣṇa, so Kṛṣṇa becomes so merciful that if you approach Him in this form of the holy name, everything is forgiven. If you offend the Lord, you can still be delivered simply by taking shelter of the holy names of the Lord—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. In other words, the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa is beneficial for eradicating all sins. But if one becomes an offender of the holy names of the Lord, then he has no chance of being delivered. There is, however, a way to be excused for offenses at the feet of the holy name.

******

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes:

While chanting the holy name of the Lord, one should be careful to avoid the ten offenses. From Sanat-kumāra it is understood that even if a person is a severe offender in many ways, he is freed from offensive life if he takes shelter of the Lord’s holy name. Indeed, if a human being is not better than a two-legged animal, he will be liberated if he takes shelter of the holy name of the Lord. One should, therefore, be very careful not to commit offenses at the lotus feet of the Lord’s name.

—Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.23–24, purport

******

Śrīla Prabhupāda lists the ten offenses. In his purport he states the tenth offense a little differently: “Not to awaken transcendental attachment for the chanting of the holy name even after hearing all the scriptural injunctions.” If you are so dead that even after hearing all these instructions, receiving the holy name from your spiritual master, and practicing the chanting, if you still don’t develop attachment for chanting the holy name—this is the tenth offense.

“There is no way to atone for any of these offenses. It is therefore recommended that an offender at the feet of the holy name continue to chant the holy name twenty-four hours a day. Constant chanting of the holy name will make one free of offenses, and then he will gradually be elevated to the transcendental platform on which he can chant the pure holy name and thus become a lover of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is recommended that even if one commits offenses one should continue chanting the holy name. In other words, the chanting of the holy name makes one offenseless.”

******

“The book Nāma-kaumudī recommends that if one is an offender at the lotus feet of a Vaiṣṇava, he should submit to that Vaiṣṇava and be excused; similarly, if one is an offender in chanting the holy name, he should submit to the holy name and thus be freed from his offenses. One should be very humble and meek to offer one’s desires and chant prayers composed in glorification of the holy name.”

—Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.23-24 purport

******

Here is the prayer Dakṣa made to Lord Śiva (and that we can also make to the holy name for our offenses):

“I did not know the glories of your personality, and therefore I committed an offense at your lotus feet in the open assembly. You are so kind, however, that you did not accept my offense. Instead, when I was falling down because of accusing you, you saved me by your merciful glance. You are most great. Kindly excuse me and be satisfied with your own exalted qualities.”

******

Rūpa Gosvāmī prays in his Nāmāṣṭakam that one should be very humble and meek to offer one’s desires and chant prayers composed in glorification of the holy name:

O hari-nāma, the tips of the toes of Your lotus feet are constantly being worshiped by the glowing radiance emanating from the string of gems known as the Upaniṣads, the crown jewels of the Vedas. You are eternally adored by liberated souls such as Nārada and Śukadeva. O hari-nāma, I take complete shelter of You.

******

These are the kind of verses with which you can pray to the holy name. If you make offenses to Hare Kṛṣṇa, then it’s to Hare Kṛṣṇa that you must go for relief. You can’t get forgiveness for your offenses to the holy name except from the holy name. Just like if you offend a person, then you have to approach that person for forgiveness of your offense. You have to actually feel remorse. Otherwise, we may say, “The cure for offensive chanting is to go on chanting.” But you have to chant with the desire to improve. This is your way back to Godhead; you have to do it right. If that awareness doesn’t enter your mind and heart, then it will not be very easy to change, to reform.

******

Rūpa Gosvāmī has explained the reluctant chanting of the neophyte. He compares such a chanter to a man with jaundice. To a man with jaundice everything tastes bitter. But the cure of this jaundice disease is to regularly take the most concentrated sweet, like this rock candy. And even rock candy the jaundiced man tastes as bitter. But as he takes and takes, then gradually his normal taste returns, and he tastes the sugar as sweet. So Rūpa Gosvāmī compares this to the neophyte’s chanting of the holy name. He says that actually the holy name is the sweetest of all things. It is sweeter than any taste of the material world. The taste of success in material sense gratification is nothing compared to the taste of love of God by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. But because the neophyte devotee is still affected by material desire, the sweet name to him is also sometimes dry. But the cure is to regularly take this holy name, and that will return the spirit soul’s original taste for chanting the names of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Excerpts From GN Press

From Cc Asraya

pp. 21-28

AUGUST 31, 1996

Kṛṣṇa is bhakta-vatsala; He leans toward His devotees:

“… He is so magnanimous that He can give Himself to His devotees.”

I woke up late, 12:30 A.M., because a headache was lingering. Now there’s no time for sustained reading. Anyway, I don’t have to fake it that I’m absorbed in śāstra.

Still, I’ll write my bit, a word, “bhakta-vatsala,” Kṛṣṇa’s most wonderful quality. Once we start traveling in the van, our routine won’t allow me so much time for reading. Therefore, I had better grab a word like “bhakta-vatsala” and keep it with me as I drive on the dark highway.

The Kumāras and Śukadeva were perfected Brahman-realized saints, but they became attracted to Kṛṣṇa’s forms and pastimes. Out of compassion, Śukadeva Gosvāmī described Kṛṣṇa in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

The gopīs and Kṛṣṇa’s queens were attracted to Kṛṣṇa’s handsome form and qualities. “Lord Kṛṣṇa even attracts the mind of the goddess of fortune simply by vibrating His transcendental flute (vaṁśī-gīta).” Vaṁśī—that word reminds me of the young Italian man who died in Vṛndāvana, Vaṁśīdhārī. Devotees pass away, and we don’t always remember them actively. He was not as famous as Gaura-Govinda Mahārāja or Gaurī dāsī. Vaṁśīdhārī—he was my disciple. After he died, I read from his diary and published excerpts from it in “Among Friends.” He was sweet, submissive, and intelligent, and he was forced to accept Kṛṣṇa’s will, which was pressed on him heavily in the form of early death. Elderly Dīnadayādra dāsa cared for him up until the end …

Write it down.

***

How was the serpent Kāliya so fortunate as to be touched by Kṛṣṇa? I wish …

This chapter is not a collection of Sanskrit definitions, but of verses describing the devotees who are attracted to Kṛṣṇa in different rasas. We have to give up our sectarian prejudices (“Kṛṣṇa is an Indian god”) and accept Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Our Swami has ordered us to do so.

The Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana lived for the service of Lord Caitanyadeva and Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. Follow them.

***

Even birds, animals, and trees are attracted to Kṛṣṇa’s qualities in Vṛndāvana. Seek to be attracted. Remain open to it. Don’t block your earholes, don’t deny yourself the darśana of the arcā-vigraha, and perform other favorable practices to inspire attraction.

***

If I say I cannot be attracted to Lord Hari because of my past sins, Caitanya-caritāmṛta tells me that devotional service burns away all sins and their reactions. But don’t go back and start new fires. Hari: He takes away sins and attracts us to Himself.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1996

Śacīnandana Swami wrote me, “May your transcendental pen never tire.” Thank you. I don’t want to tire of life itself—the wonder of the dawn sunlight reflecting on the lake’s ripples and my attempt to steer righteously and humanly to Kṛṣṇa. I am human. To some degree we have to deny or restrain the base parts of our humanity, but human we remain. I like to write about it,

through illness
and jollity and doubt.

4:35 P.M.

The first step in spiritual knowledge is to know that there is life after death. When we know this, we don’t waste time pursuing material opulence because it doesn’t free us from the cycle of birth and death. With this beginning knowledge, we can go on to become pure devotees. Cc. mentions the three factors that help us give up bad association and rise to the level of bhāva: (l) sādhu-saṅga; (2) kṛṣṇa-kṛpā; and (3) the nature of devotional service itself.

***

As I read and write, I look out the window at peaceful Lough Erne. A devotee is rowing from Inis Rath to Geaglum Quay. I leave here tomorrow. It will be a busy day of travel to Dublin and back up to Belfast. There won’t be time for concentrated reading or writing in the shelter of śāstra.

***

Great Brahmavādīs gained the association of devotees and became attracted to Kṛṣṇa.

From Given Time: Poems

pp. 32-37

November 15, 5:55 A.M.

Pee Wee Jones ran out of time
fell in rhyme in a
cold room. Took herb of
feverfew for headaches
frequent in the age of Kali
where only the holy name
can give us peace.

The sastras recommend this short
concentrated call for service
unto the Lord and Radha.
Say it and you’re lucky even while
talking to someone or insulted or
threatened, when you have to wait,
when you get a moment’s break
in a busy pace. Call to Krsna
by His names.

1:30 P.M.

Winter planting. November. Now is
the time to decide. And act. Put
those little trees in, bulbs in,
stand back and let the action of nature take place
beneath the earth. Growing, writing
waiting for the outcome.

6:30 P.M.

I couldn’t decide where to live
what to do—to travel or
reside in Ireland.
Then I decided to stay for the winter.
Will that decision last?

I’ve got heater, servant, house,
walk, bed—why leave it? Everything
is just right. Prolong my stay until
the cold weather is gone,
a sadhu on the backroads heading
to Lord Caitanya, wanting to make his children
happy, but not by attending
gala parties anymore.
How come my rounds
are getting so slow?
White-hairedi. The way of all old
sadhus in Vrndavana. I think of that holy
place from here.

November 16, 12:25 P.M.

I guess you heard we’re going to travel
not incognito but quickly so as
not to make a big scene where an
irate fanatic might attack me.

You may be surprised I’m leaving such
a paradise of self-expression to go
to America. My reason is to
get it done and then return.

Our literary mag came out today,
Discovering Our Voices. Mine is not
better than theirs, but I’m the elder, the
encourager. Some are good . . . each
a voice.

These poems could be transformed into
something dramatic or make-believe
so they’d stand out better. Or I could
wish for inspired vision
but at least this
cold clear sky,
branches etched,
and prayers.

November 17, 12:20 P.M.

I’ve got nothing special/ no one is
coming to see me/ the rain is raining.
“Glad to hear you are writing poetry.”
Where?

They say you have to suffer and be grateful
to be qualified.
And I know you need
to hear the Bhagavatam thoroughly to speak
with buddhi, bhakti.

Hare Krsna—waiting
for Madhu’s tomato-sauced
kicchari to offer to Prabhupada.
He’s wearing his magenta cadar
made by Lalita-manjari in Australia.
Prabhupada who loved us,
who spoke like a tough guy it sometimes seemed
to knock down those Mayavadis.

Offer that kicchari with old bread from the shelf.
Just glad I’m here. O Radha-
Govinda in red—any minute
now he will creak up these
stairs and in less than two weeks
I’ll have to leave.

November 18, 6:00 A.M.

“Glad to hear you’re writing poems”
and willing to go out
to help others. Glad to hear you’ll
endure pain and remember Krsna
even at the time of death.
(You will, won’t you?)

Don’t be afraid.
Krsna will protect.
Prepare to bless your enemies and
if you have to come down
with a serious entanglement, He’ll
always protect you. Even
more. That’s our philosophy.
I’m glad to hear you’re committed
to write it even if it hurts or
if you just don’t feel like writing it down.

6:30 P.M.

‘Fraidy-cat. “Even a paranoiac
has enemies.” Stay in the safe zone
and you’ll never know. Fly low and
drop bombs—of love. Great teachers
dared. Dug out.
Now I write in my diary, “Good night.”

I know God is not my bodyguard,
but He is, too. My guide, guide,
my Lord whose form . . .
As Bhurijana was saying, this boy who wanders
around Vrndavana without shoes, holding
yogurt in His left hand is God, in control of everything.

‘Fraidy-cat, dovetail it, hide your face
in the Lord’s lotus feet …
O spiritual master
may you exonerate this fellow.

From Srila Prabhupada Smaranam

pp. 119-23

The devotees bow down at the first sight of Prabhupada in the morning, and after his lecture, and whenever they meet him during the day. And they murmur his pranama-mantras. Once in the Seattle temple, when the devotees bowed down after Prabhupada’s lecture, a college student raised his hand and said he did not want to bow down to anyone. Prabhupada replied that the boy would be forced to bow down even if he didn’t bow down to the pure devotee-spiritual master. He would be compelled to bow down to rebirth, death, disease and old age. The material nature does not allow us to go through life as some master of all we survey. The real question is, since you have to bow down to something or someone, you should find that person who is worthy bowing down to. Find that person whom when you bow down to him, you will be released from the necessity of other bowing down.

In 1966, when devotees first started bowing down at the feet of Prabhupada, some of the more rebellious spirits didn’t like it and went away. Gargamuni dasa asked Prabhupada if he should bow down even if he didn’t feel like it. Prabhupada said, “Yes.”

Prabhupada told the boy in Seattle, “You are wondering why all these people are bowing down, but they are wondering why you don’t bow down.”

Prabhupada’s disciples liked to bow down to him. They did not see it as a personality-cult worship, but recognition that Prabhupada was the representative of Lord Hari and should therefore be treated as good as Hari. Those who refused to bow down as Prabhupada passed by broke the Vaisnava etiquette and ran the risk of committing an offense to God’s representative. Bowing down to the superior is a very convenient process, and it does the heart good to do. Prabhupada received the obeisances humbly, and not for himself, but on behalf of his spiritual master in the parampara.

sei se parama bandhu, sei pita-mata
sri-krsna-carane yei prema-bhakti-data
sakala janme pita-mata sabe paya
krsna guru nahi mile, bhajaha hiyaya

Under ordinary circumstances one’s own father and mother are worshipable, but in every species one gets a father and mother. Far rarer is to get guru and Krishna. The spiritual master can bestow prema-bhakti to the those who have attained his mercy, therefore he is the topmost father, mother, and friend of everyone. (Caitanya Mangala, Madhya)

Wherever Prabhupada goes in his 11th floor suite in the 55th Street temple in Manhattan, he is surrounded by devotees who worship him and want to serve him. Tamal Krishna Gosvami wants to help him open the door to his room, Hari Sauri, dressed in his gamsha, is ready to give Prabhupada his massage, Ramesvara Maharaja wants to lead and guide the way and be the first to accompany him through the hallway. Prabhupada accepts all the service and attention in a matter-of-fact way, neither encouraging it nor discouraging it. It is 1976, and this is his first and last visit to the skyscraper temple. Things have changed completely from when he was first in New York City in 1965. At that time he was all alone with no one to help him and no money to meet his essential needs. He was staying in a windowless studio lent to him by an acquaintance yogi, Dr. Misra. Now he has more helpers than he needs, and he is maintaining them and engaging them as disciples for their own good. He doesn’t need ten people to walk down the hall with him or two hundred people to hear him lecture in the temple, but he accepts it as service to his Guru Maharaja.

This was why he came to America, to convert the westerners to Vaisnavas, and now it has come to pass. He does not accept it as glory to himself or as sense gratification but as duty, as a preacher. It is the purity of his success to allow all these men to surround him and to tend to him, even if it may be a little infringing on his privacy. He is the same person he was in 1965, humbly serving his spiritual master, but now he has money and men and women. It has not changed his heart in his original intent—to spread Krishna consciousness as a humble servitor of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

To get pure love of God you have to be with the pure devotees. It saves hundreds and hundreds of lifetimes. And we think I better go forward then and get that association. But then we ask ourselves What about my association with Srila Prabhupada, isn’t that sufficient? The answer is yes it is sufficient. Association with him is potent. But I have to take full advantage of it. I shouldn’t say that I’m not so advanced that I can do it by separation I need a siksa-guru. Rather I should increase my devotion to you in the way that is available to me.

Dear Srila Prabhupada, therefore I’m working these different avenues . . . looking at pictures. This picture of you sitting reading the Gaudiya Math edition of Brahma-samhita while I, a young grhastha with my beadbag around my neck am pouring the liquids on the Deities. I was lucky, lucky to be a devotee under your care that way. So young and you so lenient, old. In charge of all of us in the temple of Boston. Picture after picture Prabhupada leading us. On the Ratha Yatra parade or my getting initiated in 1972 in Los Angeles while you sat on the vyasasana. You said that if somebody gets initiated and promises in front of Krishna and the guru and so on then he has to keep that promise or he’ll not be good at all.

Hare Krishna. Jai Srila Prabhupada. I’m thinking of my relationship with you as I pray. Thinking of me as young when you were here. Now you’re gone, and I’m not young. What to do? I pray that you’ll always be with me and I know you will. I pray to remember you at the time of my death. Dear Srila Prabhupada, let me be your sisya. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

From Readings in Vedic Literature: The Tradition Speaks for Itself

pp. 101-7

The First Indologists

Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami

This article is based on a lecture given at the Third European Communications Seminar in Radhadesh, July 1992. It appears as a chapter in the 1977 book Readings in Vedic Literature: the Tradition Speaks for Itself’, published for use as a college textbook. This extract is an example of the depth of research and mode of presentation that is necessary if ISKCON wants to effectively communicate with an academic audience. The perspectives and conclusions presented show how Gaudiya Vaishnavism can find its voice and learn to speak for itself in the contemporary world.

The first Westerners to investigate the Vedic literatures were the British, in the last half of the eighteenth century. It is best to understand their work in the larger historical context of the British rule of India.

A Brief History of the British in India

Early invaders of India included the Persians (600 BC) and the Greeks under Alexander the Great (300 BC). India’s first great Hindu empire, the Maurya Empire founded by Candragupta (300 BC), expanded under Emperor Asoka to embrace the whole sub-continent, and it also fostered Buddhism. After Asoka, assorted northern tribes invaded India, until the reign of another Gupta dynasty, which united a section of the country for centuries. In the seventh century the Arab Muslims began conquering India, and various Muslim leaders developed empires up until the Mogul Empire, whose chief ruler was Akbar. During the reign of Akbar’s son Jahangir (1605-1627), the British established their first trading station in India. The Portuguese had been the first Europeans to arrive, and they competed with the French and English for commercial control of port cities. Through treaties with local rulers, the trading companies became more powerful than the Mogul Empire. The companies received official monopolies from their governments and held huge armies of mercenaries. By defeating an Indian army at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the British East India Company finally gained supremacy. Throughout the eighteenth century, the company made treaties or annexed areas by military campaigns; at last in full control of India, it ceded the country to the British government…..

To most eighteenth-century Englishmen (whether at home or abroad), religion meant Christianity. Naturally, racism played its part also. This attitude of Europeans toward Indians was due to a sense of racial superiority – a cherished conviction which was shared by every Englishman in India, from the highest to the lowest. Thus, upon arriving in India in 1813, the governor general, the Marquis of Hastings wrote, ‘The Hindoo appears a being merely limited to mere animal functions, and even in them indifferent . with no higher intellect than a dog.’

Without governmental sanction or license, the Christian evangelists came to India and proselytized to undermine the ‘superstitions of the country’. Alexander Duff (1806-1878) founded Scots College, in Calcutta, which he envisioned as a ‘headquarters for a great campaign against Hinduism’. Duff sought to convert the natives by enrolling them in English-run schools and colleges, and he placed emphasis on learning Christianity through the English language. Another leading missionary, a Baptist, William Carey (1761-1834), smuggled himself into India and propagandized against the Vedic culture so zealously that the British government in Bengal curbed him as a political danger. On confiscating a batch of Bengali-language pamphlets produced by Carey, India’s Governor General Lord Minto described them as ‘scurrilous invective . without arguments of any kind, they were filled with hell fire and still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men merely for believing in the religion they were taught by their fathers.’ Duff, Carey, and other missionaries gradually gained strength and became more aggressive; finally, they gained permission to conduct their campaigns without governmental license. The missionaries actively opposed the British government’s attempt to take a neutral stand toward Indian culture and worked with optimism for the complete conversion of the natives. They did not hesitate to denounce the Vedic literatures as ‘absurdities’ meant ‘for the amusement of children.

Historian Arthur D. Innes writes, ‘The educators had hardly concealed their expectations that with Western knowledge the sacred fairy tales of the East would be dissolved and the basis of popularly cherished creeds would be swept away.’ The suspicion of religious coercion disrupted British-Indian relations and in 1857 helped touch off the Sepoy Rebellion (of Indian mercenaries).

The first scholars

Such was the setting in which the first Indologists appeared. These first Vedic scholars did not form a unified political or academic party; they were variously conservative, liberal and radical. Sir William Jones, the first Englishman to master Sanskrit and study the Vedas, drew fire from the eminent British historian James Mill for his ‘hypothesis of a high state of Civilisation’. Typically, Mill believed that the people of India never had been advanced and that therefore their claim to a glorious past (which some of the early Indologists supported) was historical fantasy. However, by translating the Vedas for the Western reader and thus evincing the ancient Vedic genius, the scholars increased India’s prestige in the West. On the other hand, as Aubrey Menen has said, ‘It should be remembered that they (the English of the seventeenth century) were not the almost pagan English of today. Every man was a Christian, and it was a Christian’s duty to wash the heathen in the blood of the lamb.’ Nonetheless, some of the early scholars rather admired the Vedic culture they were investigating, even though they initially conceived of themselves as bearers of Christian light to the sacred darkness of the heathens.

Sir William Jones (1746-1794), Charles Wilkins (1749-1836), and Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1837) are considered the fathers of Indology. Jones was educated at Oxford and there began his studies in Oriental and other languages; he is said to have mastered a total of sixteen. In addition, he wrote a Persian grammar, translated various Oriental literatures and practiced law. After his appointment as judge of the Supreme Court, Sir William went to Calcutta in 1783. There he founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal and was its president throughout his life. He translated a number of Sanskrit works into English, and his investigations into languages mark him as one of the most brilliant minds of the eighteenth century. Sir William was not prone to invective against another’s religion, particularly the Vedic, which he admired. In his view the narratives of the East, like those of Greece and Rome, could enrich both the English tradition and the human mind. Notwithstanding, Sir William’s stance was that of ‘a devout and convinced Christian’. Thus, he described the Bhagavata Purana as ‘a motley story’, and he speculated that the Bhagavata came from the Christian gospels, which had been brought to India and ‘repeated to the Hindus, who ingrafted them on the old fable of Cesava (Kesava, a name for Krsna), the Apollo of Greece’. This theory has since been discredited since records of Krsna worship pre-date Christ by centuries. H. H. Wilson (1786-1860), described as ‘the greatest Sanskrit scholar of his time’, received his education in London and journeyed to India in the East India Company’s medical service. He became secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1811-1833), and medical duties notwithstanding, he published a Sanskrit-English dictionary. He became Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1833, librarian of the India House in 1836 and director of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1837. Titles credited to his name include Vishnu Purana, Lectures on the Religious and Philosophical Systems of the Hindus and Rig Veda, among others. He also contributed to Mill’s History of India and edited several other translations of Eastern literatures. In addition, he proposed that Britain restrain herself from forcing the Hindus to give up their religious traditions. Compared to the evangelists, he appears to have been a champion of the preservation of Vedic ideas.

W.H. Moreland et. al., A Shorter History of Indian Tradition.
J. Allan et al., The Cambridge Shorter History of India, p. 557.
H.H. Dodwell, ed., The Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. five, p. 122.
House of Commons, ed., Observations on the State of Society, p. 1.
Robert Chatfield, The Rise and Progress of Christianity in the East, p 367.

(To Be Continued)

From One Hundred Prabhupada Poems

pp. 61-66

#49

May I dedicate this to my
spiritual master? Unless you please
him you are nowhere. Only devotees
can understand this. Those without
a bona fide spiritual master will see it
as some kind of oppression or
false life.

I have a loving and sometimes stern
spiritual master. He is expert and
empowered by his spiritual master to
spread the mercy of Lord Caitanya all
over this world.
I am doing my best, I say,
to serve him.

If my expressions are tired it’s
my fault. Srila Prabhupada was strong up until his last breath; he said
he prayed to Krsna for enthusiasm,
and the Lord gave it.

He is eternal, we are all eternal.
He has gone to his nitya-lila.
We will all go somewhere.
It was a quick eleven years and the rest
of life is recounting it and living
out service in separation.
Separation is longer and more important
than brief meeting. I want to
live for him in my own way.

Dear Srila Prabhupada,
I write this as rain pours down
on our van roof. I’m dry
under lamp light, we are about
to leave this camping spot and head
for the ferry to Ireland,
a rendezvous for lots of writing.
I pray you won’t see me as a
nonsense, or motivated like
Ekalavya. I don’t want to be a
great writer. I write to please
you by achieving an honest state.
I do love it, but it’s work,
long and patient love like you gave
to us in ISKCON.
I don’t want to write to please myself
and just tag on “for Prabhupada.”
But I’ve got to tell it honest.
I’m trusting in your
guidance.

#50

Prabhupada, I am in Wicklow. I went
on a walk. I am your disciple.
You know me. I heard they found a diary
you kept from January to July 1966;
it was a day-timer. They said I am mentioned
as giving a donation. Maybe it was
the $400, my savings
I was gonna use to go to some “green place”
I had in mind, Canadian island where I thought
I’d find peace and write for
maybe six months before coming back
to New York City.

Now by your grace I have
as much of green places
and writing as I desire.
But the goal of devotional service is different—
nothing is done for karmic gain
or knowledge for its own sake
without practical purpose.
Practical means you love Krsna
and He is pleased with you.
You do it by serving His servant.

# 51

I just read two poems in a book,
The Father by Sharon Olds
in which she tells how her father
is dying and how she felt
and how she thinks he felt.
It reminded me that Prabhupada passed away.
If I were to go back to that
it would take much effort and concentration. I don’t want to dig up my shortcomings
on such a painful subject.

I wasn’t basically wrong.
I sensed the end had come
and knew we could serve you in separation.
I was sure you would stay with us
in vani, and that I’d serve you.

But I fell so short
of appropriate loving feelings.
I remember your close servants.
They get eternal credit, even if
some of them went mad, and left your service.
Probably they will never leave you
and will remember you when they die.
I was a numbed stone.
Went to my room in the Guesthouse
tried to write a book on varnasrama to occupy myself and not think what was happening.

Actually I can’t recall,
don’t want to. I prefer
the Gaudiya Vaisnava philosophy that says, the pure soul goes on to nitya-lila
and his servants continue serving him.

And when each of his servants die,
it won’t be so horrible or painful
because they will call to you
and somehow they will join you.
That’s the scenario and it can work
if we remain cool and pray for conviction.
Until then I want to read your books
in which you never pass away
and in which I don’t falter,
your books, where Lord Krsna
creates the universes
and plays in Vmdavana with His parisads
In those books we can go on hearing,
guru and sisya
and we don’t need anything else.

#53

Wherever I turn, Prabhupada’s wisdom. I find it mostly in a lack of wisdom
the nondevotees speak and act.
They don’t even know the first lesson,
“You are not this body.”
Prabhupada called them for that—
they don’t know who they are yet
they claim, I am scientist,
I am poet, philosopher,
I am president.
He charged them all with rascaldom.
We have to admit he’s right.

Most people don’t know you, Prabhupada.
They’re occupied with leaders
who don’t know Krsna.
“Men who are like hogs, dogs, camels and asses,
praise those men who never listen
to the glories of Lord Krsna.”
It was Sukadeva Gosvami who called them hogs
and Lord Krsna’s word is “mudha.”
Prabhupada said,
“My way is easy, I just repeat
like a parrot. I don’t have to research
like Dr. Frog. I can’t compromise.”
That’s my master. He’s headlong
further and further into Krsna consciousness,
daring anyone to stop him
but no one can. No one can check
Lord Caitanya’s movement.

We are sad we couldn’t keep up
the expansion of the Hare Krsna movement.
If he were here he’d make us understand and
feel full of hope.
Take it he is here,
and we can see it his way.

From Journal and Poems, Volume 3

pp. 101-6

APPEARANCE DAY OF RAGHUNATHA DASA GOSVAMI

When we disciples of Srila Prabhupada first read about Raghunatha dasa Gosvami in the Caitanya-caritamrta, we immediately considered it one of the most inspiring and relishable life stories of a Vaisnava. It reminds me of one of my other favorite stories, the life of Narada Muni, as given in the First Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. We were inspired to hear how Raghunatha ran away from his parents. Even in previous centuries, great devotees had the same difficulties that devotees now experience in trying to join Lord Caitanya. Raghunatha was victorious in joining Lord Caitanya, and victorious in the life of renunciation and devotion.

Srila Prabhupada often told in detail the story of how Raghunatha dasa Gosvami gradually cut down his eating. At first he was receiving considerable money from his father, even though he was living as a renunciant. He would use the money to hold a festival and invite Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu for prasadam. After a while, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu asked His secretary why Raghunatha wasn’t holding the festivals anymore. Svarupa Damodara said that Raghunatha thought it wasn’t proper to receive money from his parents while living as a renunciant, and so he stopped accepting it. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu approved and asked how Raghunatha was getting his meals. Svarupa Damodara said, “He stands by the gate at the Jagannatha temple and begs from passersby.” Later, when Lord Caitanya didn’t see Raghunatha at the gate, He asked how he was doing. Svarupa Damodara said Raghunatha had given up the begging practice, considering it to be like the activities of a prostitute approaching customers. Now he was eating by taking rejected rice from the drain in the kitchen. On hearing this, Lord Caitanya went to Raghunatha and ate some of the rejected rice. Raghunatha Gosvami tried to stop the Lord from taking the rice, saying it wasn’t fit for Him. But Lord Caitanya insisted and said, “This is nectarean food, why haven’t you invited Me to take it with you?” In this way Lord Caitanya showed His great approval of Raghunatha Gosvami’s renunciation in eating.

Prabhupada has warned us that if we attempt to imitate Raghunatha’s behavior, we will lose whatever standing we have in devotional service. Each of the Six Gosvamis showed a particular, extraordinary opulence in devotional service. For example, Sanatana Gosvami demonstrated Vaisnava humility and Jiva Gosvami demonstrated philosophical excellence. Raghunatha dasa Gosvami showed the example of renunciation.

Lord Caitanya came to teach renunciation: vairagya-vidya nija-bhakti-yoga. We hope to gradually become true followers of Raghunatha dasa Gosvami and not care for the demands of the body.

I offer my respectful obeisances unto the Six Gosvamis, who were engaged in chanting the holy names of the Lord and bowing down in a scheduled measurement. In this way they utilized their valuable lives and in executing these devotional activities they conquered over eating and sleeping and were always meek and humble, enchanted by remembering the transcendental qualities of the Lord.

—Sad-gosvamy-astaka, Verse 6

Raghunatha Gosvami is particularly associated with Radha-kunda, since he spent his last years there, and his bhajana kutir is located there. Devotees sometimes ask if they should go to reside at Radha-kunda or inquire from devotees living there about the mellows of Raghunatha dasa Gosvami’s devotional service or the mellows of Radha and Krsna. But Srila Prabhupada didn’t approve of this. We may go and visit when we are staying in Vrndavana, but we will not become real followers of Raghunatha dasa Gosvami by loitering at his bhajana-kutira or trying to become a retired babaji. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and Srila Prabhupada have condemned such imitative attempts. They want us to chant Hare Krsna in humility and prosecute preaching duties in the Krsna consciousness movement. In this way we can attain the favor of Raghunatha dasa Gosvami and the six Gosvamis.

RAGHUNANDANA PANDITA

Raghunandana Pandita was a resident of Srikhanda and the son of Sri Mukunda dasa. Raghunandana was among the devotees for whom King Prataparudra provided lodging and to whom he distributed prasadam when they traveled from Bengal to Orissa to take part in Lord Jagannatha’s Ratha-yatra with Lord Caitanya. Raghunandana danced with Lord Caitanya and other devotees in front of Lord Jagannatha at the festival.

Once Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu spoke with Raghunandana and his father, Mukunda dasa, as well as another devotee from Srikhanda named Sri Narahari. Lord Caitanya asked Mukunda dasa, “You are the father, and your son is Raghunandana. Is that so? Or is Srila Raghunandana your father and you are his son? Please let Me know the facts so My doubts will go away.” Mukunda replied, “Raghunandana is my father, and I am his son. This is my decision. All of us have attained devotion to Krsna due to Raghunandana. Therefore, in my mind he is my father.” “Yes,” Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, “it is correct. One who awakens devotion to Krsna is certainly a spiritual master.” The Lord then became very happy and compared Mukunda dasa’s love of Krsna to pure gold.

It would be nice if we could all bring our parents to Krsna consciousness in this lifetime, but we cannot expect it. We can be a “father,” however, for many persons, as we attempt to distribute Krsna consciousness to whomever we meet, young and old.

One can try to share Krsna consciousness with one’s mother and father, but if they will not hear—and if they detain us and distract us from the path of bhakti—then we may have to do as Raghunatha did and flee in the night. This will ultimately be a better service to our parents because a devotee automatically wins liberation for his kin.

Based on our karma and Krsna’s plans for us, different devotees have different relationships with their parents. Some maintain a superficial but dutiful connection and gradually in-fluence their parents to say the holy name, and accept prasadam. Some parents actually render direct service under the guidance of their “father” or “mother.” Some parents of devotees become softened when they see their grandchildren, born of Vaisnavas. But some parents force the devotee to a severe and permanent separation. This may be for the protection of the devotee, as arranged by Krsna. Whatever the arrangement, we should accept it as Krsna’s grace. Our father may be more like Mukunda dasa, or more like Hiranyakasipu. In either case, we give thanks to Krsna and go on with our service.

******

Hal Roth’s letter is really encouraging. He has again accepted some of my poems for Windchimes. He has also given me the names of haiku persons and places to visit in Tokyo. And his advice:

There are those who take a very narrow view of haiku and quote many rules on the genre. I am not one of them, as you have noticed from the selections of W.C. I agree completely with you that one can advocate through poetry. There are those who would say it is fine to advocate through poetry but not through haiku. I believe that is very narrow-minded. I personally do not choose to distinguish between haiku and senryu and believe the subjects to be addressed by this genre are limitless. If one cannot express what one is and feels through his poetry, then the poetry, or the definition imposed by some man on the poetry is at fault. I appreciate your confidence in me, but you must not pay too much attention to anything I say or anything anyone else says. I am not an expert. Some will tell you they are—hold them in suspicion. In your art you must first be true to yourself. If, in your poetic art, you choose to use the short form of one, two, or three lines, and if you choose to involve, often, the technique of internal comparison, and if you choose to present your art in a clear, concise manner, devoid of personal prejudice (I mean telling someone specifically what or how to feel), then you are a writer of haiku. At least this is my opinion. If it is yours, fine; if not, you will find your own.

Although Hal Roth’s definition of haiku is very free and open, I still feel constrained by the brevity required. Therefore, I liked this statement by Henderson, which he wrote in reviewing a book:

This is what I had hoped for—not only haiku, but also offshoots of haiku, poems inspired by haiku, the makings of a new, vital, American development.

Rupanuga’s letter is also encouraging, “Preaching means to the karma, the nondevotees, either by face to face or by writing books as you do. We can never forget how Srila Prabhupada came after us and captured us, and he expected us to run after the others also.”
Encouragement is such a powerful force. Now I must encourage those who have encouraged me. It can’t be bluffed, but even a small, sincere gesture can go a long way, helping others to Krsna.

from The Delaware Diaries, Volume 1

pp. 1-4

Tachycardia /ˌta-ki-ˈkär-dē-ə/ n. (1889): relatively rapid heart action whether physiological (as after exercise) or pathological—compare BRADYCARDIA

Part 1

March 29, 2008

He’s giving me lectures by a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, on Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. How will this help me in Kṛṣṇa consciousness? It can broaden your field of vision. The Lord asked Abraham to kill his only son, Isaac. He agreed to do it, in fear. We’ll have to see about that.

Go to a doctor tomorrow. Then ask Śāstra to do some typing for me. My chest is “congested” with lack of liberation. The World War II soldiers sat in despair. Dead sailors washed in with the tide. “Well,” she said, picking up his beer with a sigh, “we lost the war and that’s all there is to that.” (Charles Bukowski, “The Bombing of Berlin”)

Sun Tzu, the Chinese philosopher of war, didn’t speak
of particular battles and why they were fought but he
spoke on the principles of war

Long before that
Śrīla Vyāsadeva
narrated the greatest battle of all time
and why it happened.

I was keeping a diary about my indecision to go to Vṛndāvana:

I’ve been thinking I don’t want to go to Vṛndāvana next year. Too much austerity. My mind goes back and forth. I don’t like India. I like the comforts of the West. Too many people to meet in India, and the primitive conditions, noise, monkeys, crowds, filth, foreign tongue, foreign bodies. But at the present instant (influenced partly by Pārtha dāsa Goswami’s journal) I’m thinking you have to do some austerity. So why not do divine austerity? You can’t deny that a stay in Vṛndāvana is supposed to be good for you. It will be seen as good behavior by my monitors. But maybe I’ll even get benefit from it. I would want to stay in a secluded place, not the Krishna-Balaram Mandir. With one or two assistants. Do a japa retreat again. Maybe visit Chowpatty again, but the rigor of internal Indian travel is hard.”

Convincing myself to go to Vṛndāvana. It’s the right thing to do. But it will be hard. That’s not a reason not to go. Between now and then I should have lots of comfortable, easy time: another reason to do the tough thing later. Keep it to yourself how it causes you suffering, makes you morose, is an endurance trial. And try to find the good in it. There are innumerable statements in the śāstras about the value of visiting Vṛndāvana.

Bring your warm clothes. I’m pushing for it. This year it was so unusually cold in January-February that senior devotees fled from Vṛndāvana. But don’t anticipate that that will happen and avoid even attempting it. They say either you go in the cold off-season or your only other options are the unbearable summer, the unbearably crowded ISKCON festival, and the too-crowded Kārttika time.

I also think I am affected by the scandalous falldown and the fact that I have no doubt lost disciples because of it. But I think I overexaggerate this. There was no shortage of devotees who wanted to come and hear me speak in Māyāpura.

Whenever I speak with Nārāyaṇa, he is positive about spending January-February in Vṛndāvana. He boosts me up. He’s also in favor of my going to Italy in October and canceling the guru meeting in India in October.”

March 29, 12:00 P.M.

Swamis coming. Dhanurdhara Swami will be here in a few minutes and will stay for a week (at Śāstra’s). Guṇagrāhī Mahārāja will be here Wednesday and will stay for about a week. What will I do while they are here? Listen to Dhanurdhara Mahārāja’s Sunday morning lecture. Other lectures arranged. I’ll probably talk too, but it’s too soon to read this journal. Lectures give and take. You could read from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, when Lord Caitanya goes on His southern tour.

When Lord Caitanya wanted to travel alone on a tour of South India, He gathered His devotees and spoke to them. When He told them He would travel alone without them, they were devastated. “Let some of us go with You,” they protested. He replied by complaining of how their concerns for His comforts hindered His attempt to strictly follow the sannyāsa rules. He wanted to go to Vṛndāvana just after accepting sannyāsa, but they tricked Him and brought Him to Advaita’s house in Navadvīpa. He said that Jagadānanda wanted Him to enjoy sense gratification, and out of fear of him, the Lord did whatever Jagadānanda wanted. If He sometimes did something against the suggestion of Jagadānanda, then out of anger he would not speak to Him for three days. The Lord said it was His duty as a sannyāsī to lie down on the ground and to bathe three times a day, even in the winter. But Mukunda became very unhappy when the Lord performed these austerities. Mukunda would remain silent, but Lord Caitanya knew his unhappiness, and that made Him twice as unhappy. Dāmodara was just a brahmacārī, but he kept a stick in his hand, “just to educate me.” Dāmodara treated the Lord as a neophyte and didn’t like the Lord’s independent nature. Therefore, He concluded, they should all stay in Nīlācala and let Him go free to go on tour alone. Lord Caitanya actually strictly followed the rules of sannyāsa, but when the devotees became so disturbed by Him, He could not tolerate their unhappiness.

“Although accusing them, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was indirectly indicating that he was very satisfied with their behavior in pure love of Godhead. Therefore, in verse 27 He mentions that His devotees and associates place more importance on love of Kṛṣṇa than on social etiquette. There are many instances of devotional service rendered by previous ācāryas. They do not care about social behavior when intensely absorbed in love for Kṛṣṇa. Unfortunately, as long as we are within this material world, we must observe social customs to avoid criticism by the general populace. This is Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s desire.” (Cc. Madhya-līlā, 7.29 purport)

March 30, 6:30 A.M.

Carrying the body around, piss it, clean it, dress it, struggle to put the wristwatch on, the stockings over cracked toenails, huffing and puffing with a fast-beating heart. Wake the deities, take them out of their beds, wash your eyeglasses—is it time for japa? Where is your dissatisfied mind going?

– Newsletter join link –

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Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

Read more »

Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

Read more »

Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

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The post Free Write Journal #389 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

ANNOUNCEMENT

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We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 3)

It seems hopeless to stop the mind’s wandering, but at least let the other track (as in multiple-track tape recordings) contain the full, awake, articulated sound: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Chant clearly, no matter what. Admitting the impossibility of stopping all impure thoughts, at least always keep the sound track clear. Then I know whenever I switch back to chanting, pure sound will be there. By a flick of the mental switch, I can be out of māyā into japa. But how to keep the dial locked on the pure sound?

******

This is the good struggle. I spit at the bad thought. Getting back on the track a few moments, my mind as well as my voice and jaws moving to worship the holy name, take shelter in the calling out the holy name—but then again slipping off on another track, either some devotional service, or some māyā not to be done. Is there a secret? I work my fingers over the beads, conscientiously chanting, saving my best time for the chanting, intellectually aware that chanting is the dharma for the age, preaching it as the essence of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and aware of my poor chanting. Hope against hope: maybe tomorrow will be better. “O Kṛṣṇa, O Rāma, O energy of the Lord, Hare, please engage me in Your service.

******

But then I reached a plateau and I thought, “This is the vast intermediate zone. It stretches far and wide. It seems you can go no further than the intermediate zone. You have stopped committing the four sinful acts (previously you didn’t even know they were sinful), and you are bound by a strong vow to chant sixteen rounds daily. But after making a certain amount of significant progress, even after being initiated by a genuine spiritual master in paramparā, after chanting for years, you are still inching along in the vast stretches of the intermediate zone.”

******

So you have decided you can go no further? Is it modesty that prevents you from aspiring to pure love of God? No. You are afraid of giving up material life once and for all. “O my Lord, when will my eyes be decorated with tears of love flowing constantly when I chant Your name? When will my voice choke up, and when will the hairs of my body stand on end at the recitation of Your name?”

******

When will the day come when I chant the holy names and not just “my rounds”? Meditating on “the second round,” “the third round,” and “the fourth round” is to mix the pure sound of Kṛṣṇa’s name with the thought of an ordinary number. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. But these numbers are in themselves niyama-āgraha—following the rules without realization. “Now I’m on the second round,” “Oh, this is the third round”—what kind of chanting and hearing is this?

******

How often do you say, with foolish satisfaction, “I got my rounds done,” “I finished chanting,” or “I did my rounds.” But did you chant as Lord Caitanya prays? No, you were too busy trying to stay awake, trying to keep your mind on the right track. Where was time for crying at the feet of the holy name? You didn’t “finish chanting.” You haven’t even started! Chant humbly and pray, for forgiveness for your offensive chanting and for a chance to improve.

******

We can get out of the offenses in the intermediate zone by being very sorry to be there. Be troubled, be bothered by it. Then you can reform. Even in the material world, reform comes out of intolerance at injustice. The reformer of labor conditions or champion for human rights—he demands reform. He protests and goes on strike. He fights.

******

The holy name is the only way out of the material world. It is the specified mercy form of the Lord; if we neglect the holy name, we’re neglecting Kṛṣṇa Himself. How lamentable! If I do not take this mercy, I am worse than dead. I have knowingly drunk poison. I have spent my life uselessly. “Why did my attraction for that chanting never come about? Day and night my heart burns from the fire of the poison of worldliness, and I do not take the means to relieve it.” Am I just going to sit here and let this happen? The japa reformer fights against inattentive, offensive chanting.

Excerpts From GN Press

From Guru Reform Notebook

pp. 26-29

DIKSA AND SIKSA GURUS

One of the biggest issues at present [1986] is the understanding of diksa- siksa-gurus. Statements in Srila Prabhupada’s books are straightforward:

The initiating and instructing spiritual masters are equal and identical manifestations of Krsna, although they have different dealings. Their function is to guide the conditioned souls back to Godhead. —Cc. Adi 1.34, purport

We have also seen a similar statement by Bhaktivinoda Thakura in Harinama Cintamani:

There are two different kinds of gurus—initiator guru and instructor guru. Both are equally respectable. They can give unto a worthy person the treasure of the ultimate goal of life, very easily, if desired.—Harinama Cintamani Text 6.20

Clear as it is, it seems we have deviated from this siddhdnta and establish an undue prominence to the diksa-guru.

Godbrothers have written several essays on this subject with support from sastra. In one paper, a devotee asks the question, “Can the siksa-guru take us back to Godhead?” He replies, “The answer to that question is an unqualified YES, without a doubt.” He gives the following examples:

• Sukadeva Gosvami was the siksa-guru of Pariksit Maharaja. He delivered him back to Godhead, but his diksa-guru was Krpacarya.
• Sukracarya was the diksa-guru of Bali, but Prahlada Maharaja, his grandfather and siksa-guru, delivered him.
• Krsna (playing the role of a human being) was given diksa by Gargamuni, but later, when talking with his class friend Sudama Vipra, Krsna ascribes all His success and knowledge to Sandipani Muni, His siksa-guru.
• Raghunatha dasa Gosvami was initiated by Yadunandana Acarya, one of the great eternal associates of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. However, he was the Raghu of Svarupa Damodara, his siksa-guru.
• Bhaktivinoda Thakura was given diksa by Bipin Bihari Gosvami, a caste Gosvami, but siksa by Jagannatha dasa Babaji, who is credited as his eternal master by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta.
• Krsnadasa Kaviraja appears to have been initiated by Nityananda Prabhu, but gives eternal credits, at the end of every chapter of Caitanya-caritamrta, to Rupa and Raghunatha, his siksa-gurus.

The list could go on forever. The siksa-guru can certainly deliver the conditioned soul back to Godhead.
One of the main differences between the two gurus is that a disciple is allowed to have many siksa-gurus but only one diksa-guru. Prabhupada writes that one who is initially the diksa-guru usually becomes one’s siksa-guru. But the functions of both gurus are often identical, involving the transmission of mantras and instructions in devotional service:

The initiating guru gives the Hare Krsna mantra. The instructing guru gives instructions on the Absolute Truth. All Vaisnavas are instructing gurus, and they all generate auspiciousness.—Harinama Cintamani 6.21

In ISKCON, since the disappearance of Prabhupada we have propagated a doctrine that the diksa-guru is the only guru. One of the rationalizations for this is that the diksa -guru, with initiation, acts on behalf of Krsna to take away the sins of the disciple. But Rupavilasa Prabhu offers evidence that “any sadhu or saintly person takes the sins of his disciples by his presence, by his instruction, by his touch, by his remembrance, by his having been seen, by allowing his feet to be washed, and by accepting a seat.” This is based on the Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.19.32-34, which ends with the statement, “The invulnerable sins of a person are forthwith vanquished in the presence of you saints. “(Translation from Srila Prabhupada’s original Srimad-Bhagavatam.)

A similar statement is made by Krsnadasa Kaviraja: “Diksa actually means initiating a disciple with transcendental knowledge by which he becomes free from all material contamination” (Cc. Madhya 4.111). Another example is Lord Caitanya’s initiation of the Buddhist teacher whom He met in His travels in South India. The initiation simply consisted of the Buddhist disciples chanting the Hare Krsna mantra into the ear of their guru, on the advice of Lord Caitanya. Describing the conversion of the Buddhists, Prabhupada writes, “Initiation means receiving the pure knowledge of spiritual consciousness” (Cc. Madhya 9.61, purport). Lord Caitanya also initiated a Sufi Pathana simply by inducing him to chant the holy name. Lord Caitanya then induced the Mohammedan’s followers to also chant. As described in Caitanya-caritamrta, “As they all began to chant, they were overwhelmed with ecstatic love. In this way Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu indirectly initiated the saintly Mohammedan by advising him to chant the holy name of Krsna” (Cc. Madhya 18.203-207).

All bona fide preachers perform this kind of initiation, encouraging people to chant Hare Krsna, giving them instructions and engaging them in devotional service. In the light of these conclusions, another writer points out the grave error in the guru institution which has developed since Prabhupada’s departure:

In the wake of Snla Prabhupada’s departure, all his sincere disciples who were strictly following the process of Krsna consciousness were actually meant to be approached and seen as gurus, especially by new men. This was everyone’s legacy. It is their certain responsibility to try to deliver others. Let the new men coming to our movement determine for themselves who among the staunch devotees they meet is their spiritual master: siksa, diksa, etc. We have made a grave error in organizing the movement the way we have. Many persons have been gravely disrespected. Many have been discouraged by our erroneous behavior in Vaisnava relations. All are to be respected.

Bhurijana Prabhu has also written me about the importance of equating the siksa-guru with the diksa-guru:

Siksa- and diksa-guru are both equal manifestations of Krsna. In the purport to C.c. Adi text 57, Prabhupada states of Bilvamangala Thakura and his book Krsna Karnamrta, “In the beginning of that book he has offered his obeisances to his different gurus, and it is to be noted that he has adored them all equally” (instructing spiritual master, initiating spiritual master, and Krsna, who was also his instructing spiritual master). Krsnadasa Kaviraja also ends each chapter of the Caitanya-caritamrta by offering respects at the feet of several of his instructing gurus. In Cc. Adi 1.7, he mentions that all of the six Goswamis are his instructing gurus, and he puts forward his pleas for their mercy. Our movement had equated guru with diksa-guru, and in my opinion, this has caused many problems. Therefore, establishing the true philosophy of guru will be a major step toward the resolution of our difficulties.

Bhurijana feels that we should be cautious about too much apologizing, though it also has its place. Confidential meetings of Godbrothers is the best forum. We should go over the history of our movement from Prabhupada’s disappearance to the present, understand how we imitated Prabhupada and see the problems that that caused. The right understanding of siksa and diksa should be established. And all Godbrothers should be encouraged to act as spiritual masters.

From Songs of a Hare Krsna Man

pp. 73-80

44

I’m really here
practicing to be a devotee.
I don’t want to be with
AG and JK, listening to their poems
and getting disgusted. They can jabber,
they can dream, I will go the way
of Vaisnava saints and sages.

There’s a map of Bengal and the places
of Lord Caitanya’s pastimes in back
of Cc. volume, but I
am here at typewriter in Geaglum,
rain outside . . . slow down.
You will be able to speak in the
temple room this Sunday morn
on liberation of Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya.

Temple and Deity room are so
cold it feels like ice when you
touch Radha-Govinda. A
pujari’s bare feet.
How about a wood burning
stove in the Deity room?

I love Prabhupada when he’s speaking
and I can perceive
the kindness and homeliness,
in morning Cc. classes in NYC 1966
and New Vrndaban ’69 when he’s talking
from First Canto Bhag. Fifth Chapter
it’s really nice, him sitting on a
funky sort of vyasasana
Nara-Narayana dasa and others laughing when
he says, “Krsna consciousness is like
inoculation against the Hong Kong
flu of material life.”

I have to swallow
the fact that he is many-sided and
can get angry at his disciples. He
says, “Why are you asking that?
You’ve been a student for 10,000 years
and you’re asking that question?”
And he repeats again and again.
I am his cela, to hell with
those who make fun of me
as they did (or I imagined it)
when I raised my hands for the first time and danced
in Tompkins Square Park.
The laughable thing is my hesitation
not the dancing. They are right
to mock me when I look
fried. My guru is so
strong and forceful. If I accept him
and I’m confident—and if still they mock me—
then I simply don’t care.

I am blowing this on a Sunday morning
not a jazzman but
a small, faulty cela who is
actually happy and has something
to share.

45

Jack’s going nowhere, went to hell.
I am here and singing these songs
besot with ISKCON controversies.
I walk to shed
I’m selfish, I’m not selfish
I’m in between.
Talk about you instead?

I’m an agreeable person
willing to pose for a pencil sketch,
don’t mind if it’s a caricature,
showing me with a weak chin and so on
whereas if the cartoonist makes Indira Gandhi’s
nose too long, she can cut off
his head
(but she’s dead now)

Okay, drop me and go to Krsna.
He’s the Supreme Lord, He cuts through
in Bhagavad-gita. He is vibhu
and I am anu. He is infinite and I
am the opposite. Right now I am
acit, nirananda and non-sat.
Actually, I am Satsvarupa dasa.

46

Let go, get lettuces,
I got apples and pears both—
there are no other fruits for sale
except bananas and oranges
a few veggies also.
But it’s peaceful on the devotee-owned
land. Got no money
they don’t plant taters,
and I’m here to do the business
of the sage
the aloe gel for cuts.
I’m here to sing
to awaken the birds
to go on my own, yearning
for a letter from Croatia saying, “We
read your books and it’s funny but
they help us a lot, why don’t you
visit? We have a house on
the Adriatic Sea—you could
write there maybe.”

Yes, write for the purpose of
pleasing and serving Krsna.

47

She asked
is all right if you use the form
of Krsna in a fill-in-the-dots game,
and a game where the body disappears?
I said be cautious about that, the
Lord is not a plaything.
I was sober and noncommittal at
the same time. Is it all right if we use
a jug for fiction? Can we eat paranormals,
blue-green algae and chocolate fudge? We saw you
eatin’ a peanut butter sandwich
so can we too if it’s offered
first to Krsna?

I said don’t ask what you can get away
with but, “How can I be perfect?”
I said, “Thank you for your letter I
am shocked, amused, concerned and benighted
by the fact that you are in trouble.
I intend to come down there and
linger awhile with you and
read some sastra out loud, I
hope. If the airlines don’t smoke dope.”
I intend I said,
but there is too much mail,
got confused
lay down on the floor head aching,
got better.

She said yes I’m
much better but not my husband and
the miseries continue, if not one then another—
they move like an epidemic,
like paper money passed around,
disease is for mortals
birth, death and old age. So please
listen to the teachings of Lord Caitanya
please take a book,
it’s for your good please chant
the holy names but they don’t.
They say, “This is a Hindu trip,
political suicide to get near the Hare Krsnas.”
But we make them hear
chant Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare!

48

“Waiting for philosophy’s dreadful
murderer, Buddha!” That’s what JK
called him and he’s a worshiper, so-
called.
I got back from the shed just
now over the mud flats. Drew out
there two pictures of swans, it
delivered me,
Krsna allowed me.

As I was walking I heard first, then saw
the Army helicopter
high in the sky but coming down
lights blinking at 4 p.m.
And I saw puddles
in the woods contemplating.
It used to be summer and fall here
and I am different. I’m less . . .
“poetic” less “reflective,”
just work and walk in my purpose.

From those enfolded woods where I
was walking and chanting with my
dhoti bottoms lifted up
so as not to get muddied, I heard
first and then saw a white commercial van.
It went up towards Manu’s house
on the side of it was painted
“Supermarket.” And I wondered
what they could be delivering.

But in the shed I was more Krsna conscious,
made prayers and half promises,
read Bhagavad-gita
and the wisdom came pouring out on me in
two fifteen-minute reading sessions.
Krsna is covered by Yoga-maya
and reveals Himself
only to pure devotees.

From Travel Diaries, Europe 1994 (Vol. 2)

pp. 41-44

A Visit to the German Farm

10 A.M.

We’ve pulled over at a bus stop on Czech highway for a few hours. The plan is to arrive in German farm tomorrow after their morning program. That means I’ll be expected to give a general talk to a Sunday audience which may be mostly devotees but some guests.

I don’t feel so vital about it. It’s like another border crossing; show your papers. Demonstrate you can speak a Krsna conscious lecture to people who may not be so eager to hear you. And I’m not so eager either, prefer the private world of spontaneous thoughts that come out in writing sessions or radio show. But I’m willing to make a good show of a lecturer if I can, by taking a verse, purport, and topic beforehand.

Go for something that Srila Prabhupada did and follow his footsteps. It ought to be satisfying to hear, give some general encouragement in basic Krsna consciousness. The talk I gave on “Krsna Meditation” at the Czech farm was like that. I gave a Sunday talk in Prague, how did that go? I spoke on nayam deho deha. I can’t recall now how I lectured and how it went over. But I think there were more guest than you could expect on the German farm.

And you have a stereotype that they are already programmed to hear a kind of European-zone preaching.

(We are so close to highway, a few feet, that a fast car makes our van shake in its wake.) Milkweeds and ordinary green taffle topweeds moving in a sunshiny breeze.

How do you go about choosing a Sunday lecture verse? I’m considering 1.2.17, śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ. You could speak on verses before it and the one after. It would be real, traditional, expected of Satsvarupa, so why not? Read purport up to the first paragraph where it mentions that taste develops by service.

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.15 says knot of karma (causing rebirth) has to be cut. It can be done by using the sword of giving people a chance to hear (not Islam preaching, “Accept this scripture or I cut off your head.”)

How does this hearing sever the knot of bondage? Because the Lord’s activities are transcendental and as you hear, you get spiritualized. But problem is lack of taste for this hearing, whether by Hare Krsna mantra or Srimad-Bhagavatam.

So 1.2.16 tells us that by service to the pure devotees we gain affinity to hear. Mahat sevam dvar muhar vimukte. Give practical down-to-ISKCON-earth application on these points. How serving Srila Prabhupada and Vaisnavas helps us develop taste. They have experience of it. Remind them. More service equals more hearing equals more service equals more hearing. It’s all part of one life in Krsna consciousness.

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.17 says the Supreme Lord Himself cleanses the heart.
A main point I’d like to dwell on is developing taste. Lack of taste is due to jaundice. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu said it’s due to offenses.

Vaidhi means entering the discipline of regularly hearing, and also service should be done intelligently with the aim to increase Krsna consciousness. Know it comes from Srila Prabhupada.

Am I bluffing and that I don’t really know myself how this works? Not bluffing as long as you stick to texts and don’t claim this is all coming from your realization and you know it.

Here are text and a subject matter you can develop. Do a rough draft outline one time. Then do it again and then prepare some Post-its.

Took a little time to read some pages from Basho’s Narrow Road to the Interior. He was deeply into always visiting literary or military places, and with great respect for Buddhist monks and shrines also. Perhaps the thing that attracts me most, aside from his poetry and the way he writes things (“The swift and unaborted tone of Thasau’s narrow road to the interior”)—is the very fact that he’s a traveler and we’re also traveling. It tells about one place where they had thin, straw sleeping mats on the bare ground and no lamps but were grateful to close their tired eyes at night:

Suddenly a thunderous downpour and leaky roof aroused us, fleas and mosquitoes everywhere. Old infirmities tortured me throughout the long, sleepless night.

At first light, long before dawn, we packed our things and left, distracted, tired, but moving on. Sick and worried, we hired horses to ride to the town of Kori. I worried about my plans. With every pilgrimage one encounters the temporality of life. To lie along the road is destiny. Or so I told myself. I stiffened my will and, resolute, crossed Okido barrier in Date Province.

We read in the notes that Basho sometimes fabricated the extent of the austerities he underwent. More important for him was a certain literary effect he was creating. But that seemed strange. Why falsify the actual externals? The translator mentioned the “fictive touch” as they say, that they’re excusable because Basho was after something deeper, he wanted to stay in the pot for many literal readings of his adventure, emphasizing spiritual over autobiographical qualities in the book. He did not, however, exaggerate his poor health and the very real physical dangers of the journey. Even though his journey took place during Genroku, a time of relative peace under the Tokugawah Shogunate, travel was always dangerous.

7:10 P.M.

Too tired to do radio show. I could go outside and walk and try it, but the flies are bombarding out there. It’s definitely pleasant-seeming here on the edge of a forest. We were in this exact spot three years ago on our return from Czech. We know many spots like this around the world, little familiarities—the nozzle-less shower in a rooftop flat in Delhi, a P-stop in Poland where there’s a stream, we passed it up this time . . . uphill in back woods at Gita-nagari where I tried to pray . . . and even back to Public School 8 when we went there three years ago, right into the playground and saw the rectangle printed on the brick wall for the strike zone when playing stickball . . . the driveway at 125 Caton Avenue. That was a bit weird and “too much” to go back to all that, better not do it again . . .

Think of Gaura-Nitai Deities around the world, and things you like to do . . . Water . . . an overnight in P-stop is okay too, a bit uneasy after all, since your tin can is vulnerable, so you sleep in Krsna’s protection . . . and locked in. Trust in civilization now in Germany. Police. Robbers. Hare Krsna monks.

In God we trust.

Got my lecture outlined. By serving the pure devotee, sraddha develops, and that leads gradually to vasudeva-katha ruci. In this way, the verse can be explained.

I’m writing this just to say goodnight friend. In the morning, we’ll be up writing and reading.

Vasudeva-katha ruci. May it come to you. Lord Krsna wants you to taste the nectar of His pastimes. But you have to overcome so much nonsense. What do the schol¬ars say? Who cares? To those who serve the pure devotee, affinity for hearing the message of Vasudeva develops.

No sooner did I write this tired, “Good night,” then the police arrived and knocked on my back door. Gosh! Two big-bearded Germans in tan uniforms. I let M. handle it. He went out and showed his papers. I opened the door and showed my passport and my face. But the flies were going crazy out there and I shut the door.

“On holiday?” they asked.

“No,” I said. “We are Hare Krsna monks.” They knew the location of the farm. It may seem funny to them that we’re staying here and not going on to the farm. But it’s late and we want to take rest. Hope they don’t come again, or anyone else.

From My Dear Lord Krsna: A Book of Prayers (Vol. 1)

pp. 60-64

I pray to You as the Supreme Enjoyer, the reservoir of all pleasure. I have recently been discovering that You enjoy

Yourself in ways inconceivable to we mortals. You enjoy in the adi-rasa, the mood of conjugal bliss, and that is why so-called conjugal bliss exists in Your parts and parcels, the conditioned living entities. Due to our misconception of ego (self), we think we are the enjoyers, and we imitate Your pastimes with the gopis in the spiritual world. Because we are not actual enjoyers but Your servants, we entangle ourselves when we try to usurp Your position, and our amorous affairs turn out to be illusory and temporary.

When I heard some of the details of Your amorous affairs with the gopis, I imprudently thought, “Oh, He is doing like we do.” And I made a great mistake. Then I came to realize I had better not even hear of Your intimate exchanges with thousands of gopis because I was bound to misunderstand. I cannot judge or even ascertain Your enjoying power. Whatever You do, it is perfect and pure. You only enjoy in conjugal affairs with the best of all spiritualists, who themselves are selfless, perfect and pure. Your exchange is the epitome of love of God in action. The gopis seek no sense gratification in their exchanges with You, and You dally with them out of Your own pure heart to please them and please Yourself in the spiritual energy.

At the end of the rasa dance description in the Tenth Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sukadeva Gosvami says the hearing of this pastime will vanquish the lust of the heart. So it is not forbidden that we hear of Your rasa dance. But we should do so only after fully understanding Your position from Bhagavad-gita and the nine cantos of Srimad-Bhagavatam. The rasa dance is for qualified listeners only. Those who take it as mundane sexual affairs between a boy and his girlfriends—or who take it as mythological or symbolic—commit a great offense. One has to deserve and then desire to hear the rasa dance. And one should hear it only from the lips of a pure devotee. Sometimes professional speakers hold Bhagawat Saptahas (seven-day readings of Srimad-Bhagavatam) and go at once to Your dealings with the gopis. They are wrongdoers and cause harm to those who hear them.

I want to relish all Your pastimes in Srimad-Bhagavatam, beginning from the First Canto, and I pray to You to give me taste to do so. We should hear of the gopis, but also of Maharaja Pariksit, Narada Muni, Prahlada Maharaja, and all the great personalities whose lives, prayers and teachings are given in Srimad-Bhagavatam. For the truly rasika devotee, it is all nectar.

I have just caught a headache, and my prayer sees a “STOP” sign up ahead. But I wish to say a few more things before I end. I wish to say I love You in all Your incarnations, including your saktyavesa avataras (empowered living beings). All Your Visnu forms are worth hearing about by me. You are not only the intimate lover of the gopis and the protector of all life—not only that great range of interests and occupations are Yours—but You are my God. I have a right and a responsibility to say, “You are mine.” This stage of thinking that “You are mine” is called mamata. It is technically an advanced stage of devotional service. But I think we neophytes may also claim it. Is it not true? Don’t You belong to me? I know I belong to You, and so I may dare to say the reverse is true—that You belong to me. If this is not true, then I am cut off from the most precious and essential connection of my life. You are my God, and I worship You as my controller and protector, as well as my best friend. Please guide me through the heart how to approach You in the safest and quickest way.

I am writing to You in the afternoon. I just had lunch with my friends, and there was lively conversation. Now we are alone. I look to You in my mind and heart. I find You there. You are a quiet, abiding presence. I cannot perceive You with the clarity and intensity of a great devotee, but I know I abide in You. When I call on Your names, You answer back. “Narada penetrates into the presence of the Lord by the transcendental chant.” You keep me alive in this body by Your will, and when my time comes, You will withdraw my life. You are completely in control. But since I am one in quality with You, You have given me a small amount of free will, just as You have unlimited free will. You never misuse Your will, but I am marginal; I am prone to act sometimes within the material energy and sometimes in the spiritual energy. My responsibility as a human being is to act for Your interests, and my own, and stay within the spiritual energy by engaging in devotional service. I pray for the intelligence to act as Your devotee.

Please inspire me to regularly hear about Your glories in books like Srimad-Bhagavatam and Brhad-bhagavatamrta. Reading them is like a hungry bhakta honoring a prasadam feast. And let me regularly take pleasure in seriously chanting Your holy names, Radha and Krsna. The chanting benefits us far beyond what we can actually estimate or appreciate. You have invested all Your potencies in Your holy names, and there are no hard and fast rules in chanting them.
I like to be alone with You and hear You talk to me in the quiet. And I like to recite the uttama slokas (perfectly composed verses) contained in sastra. For example, Srila Sanatana Gosvami begins his Brhad-bhagavatamrta with these two verses:

Text 1: “All glories to that inconceivable Lord who descended to bestow the gift of perfect love for His own lotus feet. He is an ocean filled with many kinds of sweetness, and He always bears the fragrance of fresh youth. In His form as Sri Caitanya, He has realized the last extreme of transcendental experience, the love residing externally in the gopis.”

Text 2: “All glories above all to the gopis, headed by Sri Radhika, who are famous as the Lord’s dearmost devotees. No one can even begin to properly describe the charm of their supreme affection for Sri Hari.”

When I consider the meaning of these verses, I feel complete and transcendental. I feel I have just been given the topmost knowledge in perfect utterance. And then I want to go on hearing more.

You are the object of my prayer. You are the Lord of all true religions. You are the most beautiful person. You are also the most powerful. You consider Your pure devotees to be even more merciful than Yourself, and You empower them to do great deeds on Your behalf. As we consider even a few of Your attractive, transcendental qualities, we become filled with appreciation of Your Lordship. And we are simply in awe over the benedictions You bestow on Your intimate devotees. You allow them to play with You, become Your mothers and fathers, be Your close friends, and ultimately Your parakiya lovers. You gift Your preachers with the ability to win thousands of conditioned souls to Your service and free them from the chains of samsara.

You so much like the life of the devotee that You personally assumed it Yourself as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In that golden form, You spread love of God and tasted its essence. That You could not do even in Your original form as Sri Krsna.

Please accept my praises and allow me to serve You. I am very tiny and insignificant, but You allow me to use words describing Your glories. I am grateful for this. It makes my speech chaste and gives others the chance to appreciate who You are. You are the dearmost person for all living entities, and we should always reciprocate with You in that way and make expressions of Your divine qualities. I pray to one day actually become dear to You and reach spontaneous devotional service. Then my spiritual master would be pleased with me, and my life would be complete.

From Memories

pp. 12-16

Saint Or Sinner?

We pare from our lives anything that is not Krsna conscious. Therefore, it is natural to remember those things that we did during our Krsna conscious practices and to forget the rest. Yet some of those other memories must remain because we want to make a truthful testament. We don’t want to be guilty of self-hagiography, or turning ourselves into ideal saints. We have seen a few such treatments written by Srila Prabhupada’s grand-disciples about their initiating gurus. Although it is true that Prabhupada’s disciples were all fortunate objects of his mercy, it is also true that most of them underwent conversion between the ages of sixteen and thirty. When we read that their guru showed spiritual tendencies since childhood and that his childhood was like no other childhood, we begin to wonder if it’s true. Aren’t they idealizing their spiritual master, trying to present him as a picture of perfection? Rather, their spiritual master might have been “rascal number one,” as Prabhupada puts it. He might have been more like Valmiki before he met his spiritual master. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I would like to tell you frankly how I feel about capturing the examples in my own life of less than perfection. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I can take a piece of the mosaic of my life and place it in the context of my present. I feel that sense of accomplishment, especially when I take a shattered piece, a painful piece, a piece that had no connection to Krsna consciousness. Of course, there is no shortage of such memories, and by letting them out one by one and then leaving them behind, I almost feel as if I am paving the way to the more pleasant memory that Prabhupada saved me, and that my life now is real.

Bay Terrace

Bay Terrace is one of the stops on the Staten Island Rapid Transit (SIRT) toward the south. Although I’m sure things have changed since I rode the train in the 1950s, the route is probably similar. The train began at St. George and traveled south toward the smaller towns and countryside until it reached the end of its line and turned north again.

I still remember looking at the scenery from the metal-screened windows. The train had hard, straw-thatched seats. They were probably plastic or fiberglass, but they looked like rattan chairs with crosswise stitching. Some of the chairs could be reversed, and at the end of the route, the conductor would walk down the aisle and swing them all around to face the other direction.

I lived in Great Kills, which although not one of the smallest towns, was still quite small. Going south, the train stopped at New Dorp and then a few more towns after that, then a tiny town called Bay Terrace, which was right before Great Kills. Bay Terrace was so small that the conductor would walk through the cars (the trains were often no more than two or three cars long), asking if anyone planned to get off at Bay Terrace. If not, he would speed right through it, provided there was no one waiting on the platform to board the train. Bay Terrace was the sticks.

Why does Bay Terrace come to mind? It just popped into my memory today, and with it the name of the first girl I ever dated. Her name was Alice Erickson. When I was about eleven or twelve, we went to a square dance together. By today’s standards, dating in those days was backward. The schools were strict and the young people were not promiscuous. I didn’t know anyone who took drugs. We had never even heard of marijuana. Alice Erickson was in my class. I don’t remember much about her except that she was bigger than I was—I was quite skinny—and that she invited me, probably by phone, to a dance.

Alice was a kind of no-account person. To this day I don’t know why she asked me to go, but it was thrilling to go to a dance with a girl. My parents were agreeable—in fact, they drove me to the dance—and it was at night! I hardly ever went out at night beyond my own yard or neighborhood.

I’m embarrassed by the antiqueness of this memory. Imagine talking to a person of the ’90s about square dancing or the foxtrot. Did we wear plaid shirts? Was there a fiddler? A caller?

Neither of us had hit puberty yet. I still remember standing on the floor like pieces on a checkerboard and the caller telling us how to dance: curtsy to the left, bow to the right. First go forward and then go back, then in and out. We were weaving and maneuvering around, sometimes dancing away from our partners and sometimes joining them again. Sometimes we would link arms at the elbow and sometimes swing each other by the hand. Our spirits were high and our faces flushed. We were happy to get through the steps with the music.

It was otherwise an uneventful evening. We didn’t end up hating each other when the evening got too long and I didn’t step all over her feet. I counted it as a triumph—I survived my first date. We didn’t follow it up by becoming friends. I never asked her out after that and she didn’t invite me to any more dances. I still don’t know why she invited me in the first place, but somehow my name came up and she reached out.

From Churning the Milk Ocean: Collected Writings, 1993-1994

pp. 243-46

Introducing Bhakta Bob

1 1

Who are you, Bhakta Bob?

“I am your own self. I come from the fields, a friendly scarecrow, a Frankenstein. I can speak this way or whatever way you wish. (I’m a puppet of your imagination.) But I do have a core of independent identity that has sprung up from you.”

What do you want to do in your Krsna conscious life?

“I don’t know. I need guidance. Maybe I shouldn’t get married. Maybe I should. Maybe to Pegeen, maybe to the bronze woman, Molly Malone, who wheels her wheelbarrow/ down streets broad and narrow/ crying “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!’”

Do you uh . . . are you alive? Are you like the young Polish man I know? What was it like when we left you alone in Bohemia?

“You know, ask yourself.”

Bob, I can’t get rid of you. I mean, why do you even exist at all? Why don’t I just forget you?

“It’s too late to crumple me into a ball or shred me. The soul cannot be cut or dried.”

Do you have a soul?

“Do you?”

I asked you first.

“I don’t know. But you wish me to be a story figure, a person like Alice in Wonderland or Chota or Nimai, right? You want me to live in the hearts of readers in the great tradition of literary fiction. That can happen if you skillfully patch me together. Some Fergus, some Subala, some Parasurama, some Satsvarupa . . . But I don’t think you have the gumption or discipline, and neither do you believe it’s worth taking the time to ‘create’ me.”

Because in the end, you don’t really exist.

“That’s your fault. Would you say that Romeo and Juliet don’t exist? Are they not eternal young lovers? Do you think Chota doesn’t exist? They exist in a world of imagination and those who partake in it believe it and add it to their lives. We don’t even see the souls of those flesh and blood people whom we see and touch and smell every day. We only see their bodies. It’s possible you could see as much soul in a literary character as you do in a flesh and blood boss or wife or son. But you haven’t brought me out enough. I remain a kind of joke, a paper weight, a motto, a cut-out doll. I’m your ‘Bhakta Bob’ whom you play with and toss this way and that saying, „What shall I do with him next?’ If you give me more life and freedom, I could act in real ways and accomplish your purpose.”

Sorry about that…..

LJ got a letter in the big FedEx box of letters from a real live Bhakta Bob. I quickly scanned through the dozens of letters, looking at the upper left-hand part of the envelope for the name of the sender, and it flashed by: “Bhakta Rob.” What? There is one?

Bhakta Rob is real. He began his letter,

“I am currently writing to you from N.Y. I was very inspired . . . ” He has service in the Brooklyn temple where he lives. He’s thinking of getting married. He’s a member of a Krsna conscious rock band and they’re going on an international tour soon. He has been thinking a lot about japa and prayer. “My question is, is it best for me to avoid self-prayer and try to adopt and recite the mood of prayers I read by the acaryas, or ….. ”

Shall I steal from Bhakta Rob and give to Bhakta Bob?

“You don’t have to. I have my own life. Just see me for what I am.”

(He’s growing like a worm, like the flowers in the yard. He and I are friends, partners. Dinanatha dasa is also a little bit of Bhakta Bob. He’s Italian, but he wears a sweatshirt that says, “Team Partners.”)

In the mail, someone sent me a copy of Kafka’s The Blue Octavo Notebooks. She wrote: “Kafka is both captivating and disturbing. A bright light in too narrow and plain a room.” She was interested in the patchwork of poetry and prose, single sentences and rambling notes, journal entries and narrative, and “I thought the variety of expression might encourage you to continue with your free-form style.”

He’s another crazy man, not like me. I’m a perfectly sane devotee, a transcendentalist (not a speculator like Thoreau). I’m making fun here, but it’s true, I should take responsibility for the gift of Krsna consciousness and write nicely.

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.

From Here Is Srila Prabhupada

pp. 257-61

He went alone to sell his books. Institutional sales were brisk but then they stopped and he had to spend much time selling just a few volumes. There wasn’t enough time for one person to translate and write, to collect, to oversee the printing and proofreading, and to sell—at this rate he wouldn’t live long enough to finish the job.
Prabhupada’s first volume got prestigious reviews in India.

As we read the reviews tonight, Ganga dasa interjected, “The scholars in India gave nice reviews saying that Prabhupada’s book benefited mankind, but they couldn’t imagine that one day these books would be distributed by the millions!”
Bhaktivedanta Swami returned to his rooms at Radha-Damodara for intensive writing on Volume Two. He went through the same painstaking steps to get it printed in New Delhi. Finally, in 1964, he got a donation from Sumati Morarji which enabled him to also print Volume Three.
Three volumes—the First Canto—meant that he was now ready to go to America. He returned to Sumati Morarji. Her secretary reported to her, “The Swami from Vrndavana is back. He has published his books on your donation. He has a sponsor, and he wants to go to America. He wants you to send him on a Scindia Ship.”

“No,” she said. “You are too old. You are not healthy and it is too cold there. Americans are not cooperative.” She wanted him to stay in India and complete the Srimad-Bhagavatam. Why go to the States? Finish the job here.

But Swamiji insisted that she give him a ticket, and finally she agreed. “All right, get your P-form and I will make an arrangement to send you by our ship.”

. . . he was dangerously old and not in strong health. . . . in America it would be different. He would be no one, a foreigner. And there was no tradition of sadhus, no temples, no free asramas. But when he thought of the books he was bringing—transcendental knowledge in English—he became confident.

The black cargo ship, small and weathered, was moored at dockside. . . . Indian merchant sailors curiously eyed the elderly saffron-dressed sadhu as he spoke last words to his companion in a taxi and then left him and walked determinedly toward the boat.

—Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta, Vol. 1, pp. 287-89

Madhu closed the book and looked up beaming, “That’s fabulous!” Ganga dasa was smiling too. The best story, the very real and human story of Srila Prabhupada.

7:00 P.M.

Srila Prabhupada is sitting at a tea stall in New Delhi. He has his right hand on a stack of Back to Godhead magazines. He is holding one copy, offering it to a man who is about to sip a glass of tea. Prabhupada is surrounded by other tea-drinkers. He looks like a sadhu, a friend, a determined scholar, a saint. We didn’t know him then.

Now he is in the grimy little printing shop. Crumpled up pages litter the floor. Prabhupada has a proof in his hand, a large sheet of printed paper. He is looking at the printer who is explaining why he’s so slow. Prabhupada doesn’t accept his excuses. Prabhupada is expert in business. Some say a sannyasi should stay in Vrndavana and not move among the printers. But unless Prabhupada did this, Srimad-Bhagavatam would never have come out.

Srila Prabhupada is posing with Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in New Delhi, 1964. It’s just a brief moment, a cultural symbol of sadhu and ruler. Previously, Prabhupada had met with the Vice President, who had asked, “How can love of God actually solve man’s problems?” Prabhupada had gone home and written a long letter answering the leader’s questions.

Here is Srila Prabhupada looking stern, sitting in the sunshine outside his room in Chippiwada. He has his three completed volumes of Srimad-Bhagavatam in front of him. He is “no nonsense.”

Here is the photo of Prabhupada from the cover of the Scindia pamphlet, “India’s Message of Peace and Goodwill,” which he had printed up to accompany him on his trip to America. Prabhupada stares out from this pamphlet with an extremely grave look. We on the Lower East Side had never seen such a person. He seems to be beyond male and female, beyond happy and unhappy. He is staring right through the universe. He is staring right through me.

Here is Srila Prabhupada laughing that I am a nonsense. Here is Srila Prabhupada grave about ISKCON. He explains that we never should have deviated in any way. Did he ever deviate from the orders of his Guru Maharaja? Never. Why do we? The instructions are clear. Deviation means we are foolish rascals with desires other than service to guru. He means me.

Srila Prabhupada reprimands me. But that also means he claims me. He brings me close with an angry look: “You should not have done this. You are an old student. I expected you to uphold the standard. Why did you do wrong? Why now you still don’t understand? Do you want to help me spread Krsna consciousness?”

Yes, I do, Srila Prabhupada.

“Then do as I say. This is not good, this deviation.”

I always said I wanted his attention. So now I have his mercy. But I must rectify.

– Newsletter join link –

<< Free Write Journal #387

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

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The post Free Write Journal #388 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

ANNOUNCEMENT

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We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 2)

Chant feelingly. Of course, if at any given moment you do not chant feelingly, you cannot go back and start your rounds again. What can be done? Push on, but keep trying. Kick out with heavy boots the poisonous snakes of sleep and gross sensualism. Then cry like a child for its mother, calling on the holy name, “O energy of God, O Kṛṣṇa, please let me serve You.”

******

King Kulaśekhara’s advice is important for proper chanting. At the time of death, it will be difficult to chant due to our physical condition. “Now that I am chanting in good health, let me die thinking of Kṛṣṇa.” Of course, we don’t want to die now; we want to live to serve. But now while our material minds and bodies are intact, we should chant in the mood that this is our last precious chance to concentrate and to depend fully on the holy name. With this sober reflection, you can drive out all auxiliary thoughts. Chant while you can.

******

Bhīṣmadeva also drove out all other thought at the time of his passing away. Scheming over this and that, letting the mind wander—at the time of death you will be forced to give up all these thoughts. But do it now and save yourself for chanting. Such pure chanting can save the whole world. “O Rādhā, O Kṛṣṇa, please engage me!”

******

Mind-wandering and drowsiness continue to be the main obstacles. The mind thinks over his latest schemes: “I can’t put certain things aside and simply chant!” But analyzing them, I see the things my mind dwells on are not so important that they couldn’t be suspended in favor of two and a half hours of concentrated japa. Put everything aside, and chant the holy name.

******

You should have already had a good evening’s rest; therefore, resist sleep. After fighting it off, you will get strength for japa. But if you yield to sleep, then your rounds may always be sleepy, poorly uttered, and inattentive, not just for one day but for months on end. The power of a bad habit is such that it may even become a bad habit for life, based on an illusion that you cannot fight off sleep. You say, “What can I do? It has overpowered me!” But the japa-yajña is not a mere physical exercise; it is dynamic and spiritual. Therefore, it contains force, and you can gain force if you resist the deadly undertow of sleep and poorly uttered rounds.

******

Japa is not a short burst but a long haul. One round after another, you have to enter gradually, deeply, into the mellows of the holy name—by numerical strength. It takes time. Keep chanting.

******

Chanting japa in the association of devotees helps. It’s too embarrassing to fall asleep in their presence. But no extensive talking with your japa partners; only Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare …

******

But you have to keep going. Two hours-plus can seem like a long haul if all you are doing is loudly repeating: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. But you have to go on, go beyond, push on, round after round without let-up.

Excerpts From GN Press

From Vaisnava Compassion

pp. 52-55

According to Our Capacity

To be truly compassionate requires faith. When we distribute the holy name, we are not just trying to help people hear krsna-nama but to awaken faith in their hearts. If we are faithless, how can we plant the seed of faith in others? The holy name itself is like fire—it will act on the heart of the hearer as He chooses—but Krsna has arranged for the holy name to be delivered through the devotees. Receiving the holy name is meant to be an exchange between devotees and anyone who will hear.

Even when we become more advanced devotees, our compassion may never reach the depth of Srila Prabhupada’s compassion, or the mood that Lord Caitanya expressed. We shouldn’t expect that. Instead, we will have to be satisfied to express compassion according to our capacity.

In his purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.33, Prabhupada writes:

The question may be raised that since the Lord is supposed to be worshiped by great demigods like Lord Brahma, Lord Siva and others, how can an ordinary human being on this planet serve Him? This is clearly explained by Prthu Maharaja by the use of the word yathadhikara, “according to one’s ability.” If one sincerely executes his occupational duty, that will be sufficient. One does not need to become like Lord Brahma, Lord Siva, Indra, Lord Caitanya or Ramanujacarya, whose capabilities are certainly far above ours. Even a sudra, who is in the lowest stage of life according to the material qualities, can achieve the same success. Anyone can become successful in devotional service provided he displays no duplicity. It is explained here that one must be very frank and open-minded (amayinah). To be situated in a lower status of life is not a disqualification for success in devotional service. The only qualification is that whether one is a brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya or sudra, he must be open, frank and free from reservations. Then, by performing his particular occupational duty under the guidance of a proper spiritual master, he can achieve the highest success in life.

Srila Prabhupada is not specifically discussing compassion in this purport but general devotional service. Still, it is applicable. We are not disqualified from expressing our own compassion even if we are in a “lower status of life.” We should not become paralyzed by our lack of qualification in devotional service. It is also indicated here that we can express whatever devotion we have not only according to our capacity but according to our nature, our varna, and our asrama. We do not have to share a generic ex¬pression, but we can work as individuals. A ksatriya does not show his compassion in the same way as a brahmana or sudra.

The basis of our desire to share Krsna consciousness will still be our own faith in it. Although there have been many abuses perpetrated in the name of preaching, to whatever degree one of the underlying motivations to spread Krsna consciousness was faith in the process, to that degree it was effective. It is within our capacity to weed out selfishness in our spiritual lives, if only gradually, and as we do so, our preaching will become more effective. It is within our power to desire and seek purity. Purity includes freedom from the desire to exploit others. We are often not so pure, but if we are striving, our capacity to feel compassion will increase. Ultimately, we have to have faith in our own chanting. That will give us the strength to both make advancement and share Krsna consciousness with others.

Giving compassion according to our capacity and nature rather than always according to an imposed formula will also help us deepen our faith. I have found that true with my own writing. Being a writer is a deep part of myself; it is not something that will easily be eradicated. Therefore, let me use my desire and ability to write to show compassion to others. There are many examples in world literature of persons who tried to do the same thing. I think of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his famous poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The poem was well crafted according to rhyme, meter, and metaphor, but it contained an important message which Coleridge hoped readers would take seriously. Coleridge was a romantic poet, interested in the supernatural, believing more in the innate goodness of human beings rather than their natural degradation, and revering nature.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” tells the story of an old seaman who stops a man on his way to a wedding to tell his story. The seaman had needlessly shot an albatross, a bird of good omen, and his crew had hung the bird around his neck as a remembrance. Afterwards, the ship went through a series of ill adventures, resting for days on a becalmed sea, with the hot sun shining down upon them, the crew dying of thirst.

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

As the mariner, now alone on the ship, looks over the ship’s side in his distress, seeing the sea full of life, he despises it. Then he tries to pray:

But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust.

Later, he again looks over the ship’s side, and sees water snakes mov¬ing in “tracks of shining white,” and this time he feels happy that they are alive:

O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware.

This recognition of the sea snakes as creatures of God frees him from the curse that was placed upon him for killing the albatross. Thus he is saved. After returning to land, he finds that he must periodically tell the story of what happened to him to help his fellow humans become more kind to God’s creatures. The mariner’s words come to an end with the famous lines:

He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

Literature (or other cultural expressions) should reach out with its compassionate message, and not just provide a sensitive telling of events or lives, but help people get in touch with their own feelings. Krsna conscious culture should awaken people’s devotion. People often don’t have the power to put into words what they are feeling; literature and other forms of art can help them do that. In that sense, culture is as uplifting as any more apparently direct expression of compassion. Not only does it help people bring out their own feelings, but it can remain available for generations.

We have to be careful not to be too glib in how we define compassion, or how we see our own expression of it. Krsna will accept what we can do according to our capacity, but we shouldn’t mistake self-interest for compassion. We can follow our natures in how we express ourselves, but we still have the responsibility to actually make offerings to Krsna of what we do and what we are.

From Gentle Power

pp. 46-58

I’D LIKE TO SEE YOUR PROSE AND POEMS

Is there a contradiction, something wrong
in my whole attitude toward writing?
I want to perceive with my senses
but Krsna consciousness is only heard.
That’s all right—use your nose to
smell the incense offered to the Deity,
your tongue to chant.
I do those things wholeheartedly,
but what about what I
smell and write in my own life?
Can that be Krsna conscious?
That’s my question.

I think it can, but I have to be
careful. I’m not liberated
where whatever I do is spiritual
love of God. Yes, I can walk
the beach in Krsna consciousness
and remember my mother and
Queens, New York and bicycles, but
not to binge. It has to have purpose.

Why don’t I write more of Dhruva Maharaja and
songs the way great Vaisnavas wrote them—
the Alvars and the Six Gosvamis?
Am I afraid to extol the Bhagavatam?
No, not afraid.
Then ashamed?
No, not ashamed.
I want to live in Him,
empathize with Dhruva’s feelings of regret
while he stood face-to-face with the Supreme
Person from whom all universes come, all
species of life, the beasts, birds, devas, and humans.
But I also want to write that
I read of Dhruva while sitting on a beach,
the dawn sunlight flooding the Atlantic Ocean
and warming the air, brightening the sand, while a
small boat
was moored and bobbed up and down. I had the whole
place to myself. What about that?

So I sit on the beach, thinking over
when the day will come when
I will see the beloved Lord wherever
I turn, when I will live to serve only Him,
when I will write such prose and poems.

PRAYER TO LORD KRSNA

My dear Lord Krsna,
someone asked if we prayed
just to Prabhupada or to You.
I said, “Prabhupada taught us to pray
to Krsna. We see the Deity
on the altar and the Lord in His names
because the Swami said so.”
He said, “That’s great.
You get both guru and Krsna.”
Yes, I said, that’s the way
Prabhupada taught.
He never said he was God and that we
should chant his names.

Dear Lord Krsna, Sri Krsna,
I am reading again Your Bhagavad-gita
and hearing my master’s lectures.
He hammers home to all audiences
that You are the Supreme Person. Your
name is all-attractive.
You appear as Your son or prophet,
but especially as Krsna, whose
activities are most pleasing.
Lord Caitanya gives us
the easiest method to
reach the topmost.
Don’t talk of varnas, He said,
that is superficial. Direct
chanting of Hare Krsna
is love of God made easy.
If we still fail, what can be said?

No one knows I’m here
praying to You in my closet.
Not everything I do is prayer,
but You are everywhere, even in my
life of devotional service,
as ordered by my master.
I wish to know You better,
to serve You and love You.
Prabhupala tells us we can’t expect
to come to the standard of the gopis, who gave
their foot dust to the Lord. But try.
So I pray to serve You.

BLACK MOLE DEAD

It was light when I walked,
so I found a dead mole on the path.
He was not eaten at and I wondered how
he came there to die. Did he take a few
last steps out of the grass
and fall dead in the middle
of the path? Black mole body,
curled tail. No good for anything now.
He’ll rot into the earth like the leaves.

After seeing him everything seems browner,
more real. The puddles shine.
Was he thinking? Talking to himself
like a creature in Wind in the Willows?
Or did he choke and die
with no bright thoughts?
A human can do better if he’s
practiced to chant God’s names.
Otherwise, no better than a black mole
toddling to a stop, keeling over,
and rotting into the earth while strangers pass.

GENTLE POWER

I compiled references and comments
on the 64 qualities of Krsna from NOD.
Made it into a little book.
The editor said, “Add
more material on gentleness
and on the power of the holy name.”
Today I added it while walking.
It’s wonderful when we are treated gently
because that’s what we want. A sadhu
is gentle, relaxed.
I knew some readers will poke fun at this,
so I argued against their macho stance.
I said we all want to be treated gently
if only we could find someone
so powerful that his gentleness
wouldn’t be bluffed. I gave the example of Christ.

Now I’m thinking that sometimes Christ
wasn’t soft when he spoke of punishment for sin
and throwing away the chaff,
the useless disciples,
and he smashed the sellers outside the synagogue.
He blew the minds of rich men
and yelled, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
He had sharp retorts for the Pharisees.
He didn’t condemn his persecutors, but asked
forgiveness.
He lived his word
and turned the other cheek.
I also thought that Prabhupada was gentle
with me because I have
a thin skin. I think we all do.

As for the power of the holy name,
I said it’s more powerful than atomic energy.
I wish I could get some of that power
and drive away my blues, my emptiness.
Then I could be patient and gentle
with others—if I knew the power
of the holy name was always ready
to enter me and I had nothing left to fear.

FOR THE POETS

Yevtuschenko, Carver, Neruda—
poets who represent the people, their conscience,
speaking out against national infamies.
Is writing poetry like scribbling a note to be sent
into an underground to give hope?
I keep forgetting, Why do I do it?
Finally, before it’s
too late, I remember what even sensitive
Yevtuschenko or Neruda or Carver can’t
remember—that Krsna is the center,
that recitation of His name or something about Him
from sastra and the pure devotees
will be real amelioration. Because what’s
wrong in the world anyway? It’s not one
set of rebels against a government, it’s not
capitalists
or communists, but the gross neglect
of the soul, of knowledge of the soul—
neglect of recognition that there is a supreme
purusa and everything belongs to Him.

They say Kma consiousness is
a tacked-on canon I use to
resolve a poem that really should stay in the
sensual, compassionate poet’s realm.
No, it’s the center of all people and poets
and government control. It’s the difference between
untruth and reality, love and oppression.
It’s understanding both sides of the dual
wrongs and partial rights of this world—
seeing everything in Krsna. Do you think
He’s a Hindu god, you
fine poets? As if you,
Yevtuschenko, are yourself the forger
of the human soul.

BRAHMA-MUHURTA

Pre-dawn starts to fade and
bird songs appear, brahma-sabda.
I’m prepared to tell them
that first Sarasvati gave Lord Brahma
the klim krsnaya govindaya mantra
and then she blessed him to hear
Krsna’s flute, which
came out Brahmaji’s mouths
as klim kamadevaya vidmahi . . .
Although all the truths of the maidservants
of Krsna were not revealed to him,
he was able to sing, beginning
with cintamani-prakara-sadmasu.
Krsna is the source of all, and
those who are wise
serve Him in love.

A SOLACE FOR MY JAPA

It’s raining. I wear rubber
rain gear from head to foot and
walk the roads instead of the windy beach.
Chant, chant.
But I don’t beat my mind.
Chant anyway. It goes
deeper, it goes deeper than
I know it. God looks on.
Chant, chant.

I’m sorry I’m not better. I love
to write and publish,
so why don’t I love to chant?
You do, I tell myself. You do.
In your own way you do, like
that country song: “I’m always true to
you, darling, in my fashion, / I’m always true
to you, darling, in my way.”

I’m not endorsing poor japa,
just giving myself solace.
I love the life of chanting and
beads and bead bags and people
who chant and any sincere enthusiastic
praise of japa I hear.

Pebbly road,
gray with rain, no one else is awake.
Back indoors the raindrops roll off
my rubber coat and pants,
and I smile and talk with the men while
I keep this discovery of solace to myself,
until I write it here to help me remember.

From Human at Best

pp. 49-54

The fortunate devotee will soon be delivered from material existence by the Lord. “The devotee does not desire any achievement other than pleasing the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Bg. 12.6–7, purport) He works for Krishna and at the same time chants Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Transferring the soul to a higher planet at the time of death requires great yogic ability, but the Lord Himself takes a devotee. “The devotee does not need to become very experienced in order to transfer himself to the spiritual sky.” The Lord is the deliverer. He comes riding on Garuda. Simply by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, a devotee can approach the supreme destination easily and happily.

Don’t futilely try to deliver yourself. Surrender to Krishna, and He will do the needful. Yes, I know—chant Hare Krishna. Try to cleanse the mind of sinful impressions; all attachments to material is sordid pleasure. Pray to Lord Krishna.

“Just fix your mind upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me always, without a doubt.” (Bg. 12.8) So that’s a little lectio. A near-deaf man tries to hear. He presses the Braille letters in his blindness—how much is coming through? I hear that Krishna is God and He will deliver us to His abode of eternity, bliss, and knowledge when we surrender ourselves to His care, when we engage in devotional service.

Japa jokes are plenty
and serious advice.
Perhaps you fall to namaparadha
and I wonder when
the darkness will end.

Let’s man our battle stations. You have to push yourself some. Maybe be ready to put cold water on your face. Let’s see. Hankering for good japa, I goes at it as lambs to slaughter. What else can I do? The names are absolute.

May Krishna bless us, Christ bless us, they know the way. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. May the Lord of the universe see something good in me.

O Human At Best, you little microcosm, you little microwave oven, please cook us some buns and samosas. Give us bread for the world. Feed America first and India second and then England and Afghanistan. Do it by alphabetical order and however we may get the books out. But the people of Guyana may find the non-Hindu references odd and may ask, “Why do you write about your dreams, and what’s this pre-Krishna conscious stuff? Why references to poets and authors and baseball players?” My fellow Americans don’t much ask that question. I’ve gone over it.

Why are you not a powerful acharya? No one asks that. They ask, “Why don’t you study more sastra and come up with a different contribution? Can you tell us the history of ISKCON in relation to its Gaudiya Math predecessors?” It appears cut off in history. It is like American colonies in relationship to the British empire. The colonies became the U.S.A. but it took some time for them to know who they were.

Are you saying ISKCON is like that? We don’t know why you write those poems that move around on sound and skinny. Is it true you knew of some people coming over the border from Canada at a fisherman’s point? Did your lawyer tell you your lines? When you are dying and dead, will you be able to forgive and ask forgiveness of all you have done wrong? Krishna Krishna.

My attempt is to find Him in the current of words. Krishna Krishna. Hare Krishna mantra is the boat on which we all can ride to cross the dangerous waters of Kali-yuga. The captain of the boat is the spiritual master. Here we go, hang on tight and don’t let go.

You splashed your way madly, hoping for some sincere Krishna consciousness. Did it come? Who is the judge? Subjective—objective. Periods collide. You sweat. You live alone with friends. Celebrate the coming together of words. One’s praise, “Oh, you did great.” But knows it’s not good for the freehand in process to think that. Each time you write or paint, you want to find your solitary integrity.

Oh boy, that’s good. You are sure great. You’re the best. Or that stinks. You’re in maya. God will punish you.

B. said stop being centered in yourself, you should be centered in Krishna. But I say you can’t disappear. It’s you who has to think of Krishna and serve Him. And since we have so many obstacles in our way, we have to work with the self so he can be more fit to serve the Lord. In their lectures, however, they keep saying, “Don’t act for your own interest, act for Krishna’s pleasure only.” We can, I guess, preach an ideal standard that we don’t actually follow. But I feel hesitant about that.

Oh, good Saint Seraphim, you are a good man, tough nut. The thugs came and knocked him unconscious when he was standing in trance in his hermitage in the woods.

No big wind up. The dense green looks restful. Rest. Krishna, Krishna, pay attention to what you have to say. The Lord of mercy, Krishna, Krishna. Yawn and sprinkle tears.

Mist lying on top of the hill. I want to put it on record that I feel good—not just for this morning’s air and walk, but my whole situation in life, living here and serving the way I do. For those days and times when I feel doubtful that I’m doing the right thing, please look at today’s report. See the violet-colored clover.

In Kali-yuga there is nothing as valuable as Vaishnava books and behavior.

I Will Work
I need You.
I need You now.
I never should have forgotten.
Where is the ounce of sincerity?
How to increase it?
Give me that jnana
and mercy, if You will,
and I will work, and I will work.

Spirit soul in all beings, you are put there by God. Srila Prabhupada told us right. May I not forget Him. He’s the caitya-guru, and you may receive instructions from Him if you are pure. If you want to serve Krishna He’ll help, or if you want to go to hell, He’ll help. Which do you want?

I want to serve Krishna according to my inclinations.
Try to answer some mail, pup, and pet your pet and curse your enemy, the deep sea enemy of Arjuna who fought against them all on the chariot of Indra with Indra’s charioteer who at one point became bewildered by the Dhanava illusions—“I’ve never seen such darkness.”

Writing validated not by the institution but by the individuals and not in the sense that they’re doing it as part of a contract. Honest religion, honest medication, honest response—give picture of a person moving minute to minute on the path, a voice as honest as possible.

To what degree do I see Krishna in my life? I’m already perceiving the outer world and the life of my mind and thoughts. And intellectual life of books. Where is Krishna in all this? How much is He revealing Himself to me? The answer is He is here but I am not noticing sufficiently. I’m still largely covered, and perhaps I want to remain covered. Maybe I’m afraid of what would happen if Krishna personally “invaded” my life, took over and made me His. A truly saintly person wants this to happen and surrenders to Him.

From Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road/ Back to Godhead 1991–2001/ Among Friends 1993–2002

pp. 98-101

The Hard Knot in the Heart

SRILA PRABHUPADA speaks strongly in his purports about the attraction between men and women and how this attraction can devastate spiritual life. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes:

Material existence means living together as male and female and being attracted by one another. However, when one fully understands spiritual life, his attraction for the opposite sex becomes vanquished. By such attraction, one becomes overly attached to this material world. It is a hard knot within the heart.

—Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.29.85, purport

In marriage that knot becomes especially strong, and people are not eager to be advised what to do about it. Sometimes people criticize the ācārya (Vedic teacher) by saying, “Why are you meddling in our private lives? You sādhus have your own business—worship, preaching, and so on. What business is it of yours what we do in the privacy of our marriage?”

There was an article called “Bishops in the Bedroom,” written by lay Catholics. They were criticizing their priests, saying, “We don’t want you involved in our sex life.” And “pro-choice” women, even more adamantly, don’t want any moralists, religionists, or politicians telling them what they can or can’t do with their bodies.

Materialists fiercely protect what they see as their right to engage freely in sex life. As Śrīla Prabhupāda says, “In all species of life the attraction between male and female is the basic principle of existence.”

It is a fact that the ācāryas are completely aloof from married life and its implications. They are aloof from the whole material world. Yet they are concerned. One time an elderly British man was inquiring from Śrīla Prabhupāda. The man admitted he didn’t know much about Kṛṣṇa consciousness but he was interested in hearing. After some talk about transmigration, the man said, “It seems to me that you are free by your spiritual development and that you didn’t have to come back. It seems you have come back because you wanted to, because you have a job to do.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s answer was matter of fact. “Yes, just like Kṛṣṇa. He comes, or sometimes Kṛṣṇa’s son comes, a great devotee, because the spiritual enlightenment of the fallen souls is required.” That is why saintly persons who have nothing to do with sex life and its entanglements—home, land, children, and money—instruct the attached householders.

From the attraction between man and woman, everything else grows:

Everyone comes to this material world attracted to sense gratification, and the hard knot of sense gratification is the attraction between male and female. By this attraction, one becomes overly attached to the material world in terms of gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittair—that is, home, land, children, friends, money, and so forth. Thus, one becomes entangled in the bodily conception of ‘I’ and ‘mine.’

The consciousness of “I” and “mine” directly correlates with sins like abortion. Śrīla Prabhupāda has explained that both the abortionist and the mother who chooses abortion will have to take birth again and again to suffer the same fate as the baby they have killed. Therefore, to try and save at least a few people from the horrible suffering awaiting them, the compassionate devotee preaches.

The great devotee Prahlāda Mahārāja also describes the knot that forms in the heart due to sexual attraction. In modern culture, sexual partners consider marriage optional, but in Vedic culture the attraction would always be regulated by marriage. But marriage makes the knot stronger, especially as children are born and one struggles to maintain the family. When one works hard to support his children, he wants to be respected by them, and by his co-workers. This tightens the knot of attachment. Devotees want to loosen this knot.

Married or single, we all have experience of this hard knot. Even if we ourselves have not tied a marital knot, we have all been children of our parents. I know that during my entire childhood I never once entertained the idea that I was anything but the son of my parents. My world rotated on the axis of my parents. Not until I was seventeen years old, did I begin to disagree with their world view or their view of me. Then began the struggle we all go through of trying to become free of our parents’ ideas and find our own identities.

Even after I left home and was living my own life, I still held to an image of myself as part of my family. I remember that when I met Śrīla Prabhupāda—I was already twenty-six years old—I called my parents to tell them the wonderful news. I even sent them our ISKCON Prospectus and told them how happy I was now that I had found something I could dedicate my life to.

They got angry. This wasn’t their religion. How dare I do something different? My father even told me, “If you stay with the Swami, we won’t have anything more to do with you.”

I knew he wasn’t bluffing. Although they were sentimental about their sense gratification, when their sacred codes of identity were challenged, they responded strongly.

After that phone call, I went upstairs to see Prabhupāda. I started crying as I related what had happened: “They told me that if I stay in Kṛṣṇa consciousness they won’t have anything to do with me anymore.”

Prabhupāda didn’t seem to take it too seriously. He didn’t lecture me about family attachment. He just looked at me, his eyes smiling.

I lost those parents, but in such a way that I accepted Śrīla Prabhupāda as my father, my real father. Later I wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda to confirm this. He wrote back, “You have accepted me as father, so I have accepted you as my dear and real son. Relationship of father and son on the spiritual platform is real and eternal. On the material platform such a relationship is ephemeral and temporary.” He added, “Although I cannot give you anything as father, still I can pray to Kṛṣṇa for your more and more advancement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”

I was free, but only years later did I understand what I had gotten free from. One day I was distributing Back to Godhead magazines at Harvard Square. I looked around at so many conditioned souls, and I could see what family illusion was. I knew I wasn’t completely free of it myself, but what impressed me was how strong it is. Although it’s complete illusion, it’s almost impossible to escape. To identify yourself as a spiritual soul with your own unique relationship with Kṛṣṇa is difficult when you are surrounded by family members, especially materialistic family members. The hard knot of family affection is considered the biggest obstacle to spiritual life. But when one fully understands spiritual life, the illusion is vanquished.

—Back to Godhead, 28(3) (May 1994): LESSONS FROM THE ROAD

From Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

pp. 44-47

Philosophical Doubts

As we take to Krsna consciousness, read Srila Prabhupada’s books and hear lectures by his devotees, we gain a theoretical understanding of this philosophy. It is a vast philosophy with many details. “One will find in the Bhagavad-gita all that is contained in other scriptures, but the reader will also find things which are not to be found elsewhere.” (Bg. 1.1, purport) Gradually our theoretical understanding turns into convictions and realizations. But even after years of practice, a devotee may again misuse his free will and revert to the rebellious attitude which brought the soul into the material world. Prabhupada characterizes this rebellion as a duality of desire and hate. “Due to desire and hate, the ignorant person wants to become one with the Supreme Lord and envies Krsna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Bg. 7.27, purport) One form this rebellion takes is doubts towards the teachings of the revealed scriptures.

Let me give a practical example. While I was giving a seminar on vandanam, I explained my own practice of prayer. But I admitted that sometimes when I am praying to Krsna a doubt arises as to whether Krsna is really there and whether He hears me. One of the devotees attending the seminar said that he was a bit shocked to hear that a person who is supposed to be a spiritual guide could have doubts about Krsna. I admitted to him again that unfortunately I am not above it. Until one reaches the liberated stage, doubts will continue to come. They may not be serious, or they can become so grave that they can seriously impede our progress. We should not hide the fact and bluff as if we are perfect. We have to learn how to deal with the obstacles on the path.

The Intellectual Approach

One response to skepticism is to fight back with knowledge. This is recommended by Krsna in the Bhagavad-gita, and we may refer to this -response as the intellectual approach. Flush out that demoniac doubt and get it to speak to you. Enter into dialogue with your doubt. You can do this within your own mind or in a diary. Or it may be more helpful to talk with another devotee about it. Srila Prabhupada used to encourage debate on his morning walks. He would ask the devotees for opposing views—”What do they say?”—and he would train us to argue against the atheistic points of view.

Let me raise a couple of doubts and respond briefly to them by the intellectual or debate approach:

1. “Krsna consciousness seems to be just another of the many world religions and world mythologies that speak of gods and have a theory of creation and afterlife. So isn’t the Vedic view a relative thing? And aren’t all these religions really creations of humans?”
2. “Even if I accept that there is a divine force that is beyond the senses and the mind, how can I accept the exclusive viewpoint of the Vaisnavas of India, that Sri Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead? Does this mean all the other religions are wrong? I’m afraid if I follow Krsna consciousness I’ll just get into a narrow sectarian process.”

A reply to doubt number one:

You seem to equate all world religions with man-made myth-ologies. But the true science of God is beyond the creation of humankind and its poets. Do you think man is everything? Did humans create the sun and planets, do they create time and life and death? Can they control these forces? Not really, although puffed-up scientists may claim to. To begin to understand God and religion, you have to accept the existence of acintya-Sakti, or inconceivable powers beyond human understanding. Since time immemorial, spiritually-minded persons have inquired into the existence of the Supreme, and God has revealed Himself to them in sacred texts or scriptures. Kona consciousness honors the truths found in other scriptures, but also teaches something more—a nonsectarian science by which all religions can be appreciated in their highest essence. That science is known as Bhagavata-dharma or bhakti-yoga. Bhagavata-dharma refers to the universal religion that is passed down by God to humanity, wher-ever it may occur in the world. Those who are sincerely interested in ultimate truths may consult this science by the proper method, and see for themselves. It is certainly unlike any ordinary book.

A reply to doubt number two:

The name Krsna means “all attractive,” and it is the all-inclusive name of God. Krsna is revealed in the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Krsna devotees do not decry the “divine force” as revealed in other religions. It is not a narrow, sectarian process as you fear. For example, the Srimad-Bhagavatam describes the best devotee and the highest religion as follows: “The supreme occupation [dharma] for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self.” (Bhag. 1.2.6) Does this definition of religion sound sectarian? It is not. It allows that wherever pure devotion to the Supreme Lord appears in a total way, that is the best religion.

You ought to inquire into the Vedic literature without a predisposition. If one is actually inquisitive, he is bound to gain spiritual insight from these texts.

Although these replies may be countered by the skeptic, we can counter-reply. As we go on preaching, we think of better arguments and we employ relevant sastric references. In the case of the dialogue within us, the skeptic will usually be subdued by this method.

The method of dialogue is very satisfying because the arguments that Prabhupada and the acaryas give are competent. There is no reason to be overwhelmed by doubts when they come.

In order to confidently answer doubts, you need to study the philosophy. Within the Bhaktivedanta purports you will find constant dialogues. The opposing view is presented, and the Vaisnava view is presented with reason as well as sastric evidence. By learning this method of answering skeptics according to Vedic knowledge, you can deal with your own doubts; “over and above this, the reader will be able to convert others to accepting God as a concrete principle.” (Bhag., Preface)

To address doubts that are expressed in modern terminology, we can take help from learned Godbrothers like Sadaputa Prabhu, Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu and others who are trained in science and Western philosophy. When we hear from our Godbrothers, we will understand that their presentation is also based ultimately on the sastras. Acaryas such as Jiva Gosvami have given classical arguments as to why perfect knowledge cannot be gained by any person in this material world, because all conditioned souls are hampered by four defects: (1) The tendency to make mistakes; (2) illusion; (3) cheating; and (4) limited senses. Perfect knowl-edge has to come from beyond these human defects, in the form of sabda-brahma, revelation by Vedic knowledge.

In addition to studying, the “field work” of preaching will strengthen a devotee’s convictions and arguments. Srila Prabhupada writes, “All devotees, especially preachers, must know the philosophy of Krsna consciousness so as not to be embarrassed and insulted when they preach.” (Bhag. 6.1.38, purport)

From Prabhupada Meditations, Volume 1

pp. 65-69

Turning to someone who is close to us

Lord Caitanya said something like this: “I have no love of God, not even a spot. It is not possible to have pure love of God and still live in the world in separation from the Lord. If I loved the Lord, then how could I live?” He is describing the most intense expression of love of God, and it produces severe unhappiness, but actually Lord Caitanya was feeling bliss. For myself, I cannot feel intensity in my forgetfulness of Srila Prabhupada. I follow and repeat his instructions, but I lack a personal touch. If I loved Srila Prabhupada, I would be in a different frame of mind.

Love of Krsna is so intense and bewildering that even a drop of it can drown the whole world. One feels madness—happiness of being with Krsna and sadness of separation. If the symptoms are not present, how can one claim to be a lover of Krsna? Similarly, if we do not feel bereavement that Prabhupada is not in this world directing us—as well as the conviction that he is still with us—how can we claim to be a “Prabhupada man,” Prabhupada nectar-hound, Prabhupada meditator and so on?

Prabhupada said that on the disappearance of the spiritual master, the disciple should cry. As a chaste wife is ready to climb onto the funeral pyre following her dead husband, the disciple should be ready to give up his life after the departure of the spiritual master. The way to do this is to serve the order of the guru. This is “giving up the life” in a positive sense. One may say, “I cried tears back in 1977. It has been a long time since then. What do you expect? I am sure Prabhupada wants us to go on functioning.” I agree. A Prabhupada disciple understands that his spiritual master has not “disappeared.” Prabhupada has entered the eternal lily of the Lord. His disciple continues to live by service, and, therefore, he is cheerful. Everything is okay.

Yet everything is not okay. We are without our guide on a daily basis. We feel incomplete. We seek relief, and often we find it in contact with Prabhupada. If we did not have ways to contact him, then it would be indeed difficult.

We approach him by listening to a lecture and bowing down before the Prabhupada murti. “I did it,” we should think. “I touched him, I made some contact today, so all is not lost.” Prabhupada is not sheer vani; he is not only in sound waves; he is not only printed words on a page. He is a living person.
Prabhupada is never far away, but we have to notice him. For example, when I feel envy toward my Godbrothers, I am able to check it somewhat by remembering Prabhupada. He is always there, just as the Supersoul is in the heart. All we have to do is remember and turn to him.

Prabhupada meditations do not have to be a huge effort. You do not first have to relax your body, do an asana, control your breath, and meditate on cakras for hours in order to come to an ultimate point. Just perform the simple act of turning to someone who is close. When we think and do something favorable for spiritual life, know that Prabhupada is the bestower of that Krsna conscious thought. When we find ourselves slipping into wrong actions and thoughts, Prabhupada will save us by his relevant instructions and by his glance.

Talking about a ’66 kirtana

I am talking about a ’66 kirtana. I am yearning to be within that circle again. I know about vani. I know about the Bhaktivedanta purports. I know about his urgent mission in the here and now. But I also want to be there in the old kirtanas.

His drum is a walking beat. It is like the thumping of your heart. Swamiji is the maestro. The karatalas are his rhythm section. We are his chorus.

We are dancing around him. This is better than stories of elves singing deep in a forest. This goes on in a storefront off Second Avenue, but you cannot hear it with ordinary ears.

He induced us to let go. He watched us. There were limits to the physical exhibition of spiritual emotions, but, internally, there were no limits. “Stay high forever.” Dancing, crying tears, perspiring, swaying . . . and steady rhythm. The person leading, Swamiji, knows exactly what he is doing. He is an authorized person in the spiritual realm. All we have to do is follow him. His beat is jazzy. He is unexpected. He is entering into our lives more and more as our bona fide guru.

Gradually he picks up the beat. The karatalas are splashing playfully at the surf-edge of the ocean. We jump and feel happy like children playing on the shore. This is the best thing that ever happened to us. This is why we left behind all the junk of our middle-class upbringings. This is why we rebelled. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

Don’t try reading everyone’s mind and putting everyone down. Just let yourself get up and dance. You, too, are a funny, freckle-faced person with bulging eyes and crooked teeth, or you are just as fat or imperfect as everyone else. It doesn’t matter, because we are not these bodies. This is what Swamiji is teaching and he is leading us.

He does not mind if you have your fun—make your harmonies like a blues singer or dance your little step—it is not that important. Just give of yourself the way he wants you to: enter the Hare Krsna kirtana.

Faster and faster with Swamiji in the kirtana. I pray to be with him with words, to praise him and worship this kirtana. The chorus is swelling .. . Rama Rama, Hare Hare/ Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare . . . The karatala chorus is one shimmering sheet, and then it descends like bells, but Swamiji is the same—steady, virile, transcendental. At last we are released from misery. Soon the kirtana is going to end, but we will always come back for more. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

Kirtana ends in a shimmering of last tinkles, harmonium chords, and then Swamiji’s pranamas. Breathing heavily, praying to stay with him. Craziness tries to re-enter our brains, but we are safe with Prabhupada. “All glories to the assembled devotees! All glories to the assembled devotees! All glories to the assembled devotees! Thank you very much.”

<< Free Write Journal #386

Free Write Journal #388 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

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ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Satsvarupa Maharaja Health Report for February 6, 2026

Sorry to have been off-line for so long. Haribol!

SDG has been very intensely writing with regularity during both day and night for the last several months. Maharaja gets one or two headaches per day, mainly from reading too intensely without regular breaks. The headaches force him to slow down. He rest for usually no more than three hours at a time. The headaches can come anytime day or night. His appetite is good, which satisfies his doctor, Nitai Gaurasundara. And he keeps up his correspondence and book production regularly.

SDG Maharaja is looking forward to presenting a large batch of new books at the summer festival Saturday, July 4. The press team is is on its usual marathon to make this happen.

Hari Hari,
Baladeva

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 2)

Doing other things while chanting is not good. Still, sometimes out of expediency you do it. But you should try to put off so-called expedient actions until after chanting. Chant at a designated time and chant loudly. Let other things wait. If you acknowledge that your chanting is very poor and at the same time you acknowledge that it’s important to improve it, then you’ll be much better qualified to chant and preach.

******

If you have some basic dissatisfaction or worry, then chanting will be difficult. Try telling yourself, “Put this trouble aside. In these two hours, just turn to the name.”

******

Of course the mind is sometimes thinking of other things besides the sound of Kṛṣṇa’s names. Then at least maintain the virtue of pronouncing the names clearly and of staying alert. And if you cannot control the mind, then cry (like a child cries for its mother) to put the mind at the lotus feet of the holy name and taste the nectar of surrender to the name.

******

An unfortunate but common predicament: You are not crying to the holy name as a child cries for its mother. Who can say he is completely free of this predicament? Why does it happen? One common reason is the mind’s preoccupation with other things. But what about chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa? Does it take devastation for you to cry out to the holy name Himself? But then when devastation comes, chanting will be especially difficult.

******

Why aren’t we chanting in a helpless mood? Because we are clinging to material attachments. The last offense in chanting is to maintain material attachments (ahaṁ mameti) even after understanding the chanting and hearing so many instructions on spiritual life. It is engaging in spiritual life with our anchor out. That wedding party was rowing all night, but because they still had the anchor out, they did not go anywhere. The anchor is attachment to sense gratification. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “You can chant and chant for hundreds of years and not get the result, if you chant with the anchor out.” So much work is done without result, because they are trying to prosecute spiritual duties while maintaining their sense gratification. We should be introspective, take apart these anarthas and rectify our situation to have an open road in our chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa—so we can go back to Godhead very quickly. Nothing else is necessary in this age but to be a chanter of Hare Kṛṣṇa.

******

Inattention is a serious problem in chanting. As the nondevotee does not understand the value of human life or the urgency to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, so a devotee sometimes does not fully understand the urgency and necessity of calling on the holy name. Then despite his theoretical acceptance of the principle of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, he stubbornly deliberates on other things while uttering the holy name. Inattention then explains why, when a devotee chants, tears do not come to his eyes, his voice does not choke up with the utterance of the holy name, and his hairs do not stand on end, and why he does not feel the world is all vacant without Kṛṣṇa.

******

“Unless a devotee actually develops transcendental love for the Lord, it is not possible for him to think always of the Lord within his heart.”

******

Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Twelfth Chapter of the Gītā that you should always think of Him in spontaneous love. But if you can’t do that, then try to follow the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga. And if you can’t do even that, then try to work for Kṛṣṇa, and if you can’t do that, then cultivate selfless work, and if you can’t do that, then cultivate knowledge. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu also advises that you give your whole life to Kṛṣṇa, but if you cannot do that, then you should give your money, and if you cannot do that, then you should at least give your intelligence, and if you do not have intelligence, you should at least give your words. Similarly, for chanting japa, we can advise that a devotee should constantly cry out in full love of God, completely surrendering himself to the Lord, and tasting the nectar of ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa. But if you cannot do that, then cry out, “My dear Lord, I am unable to sincerely cry out Your name in surrendered love. Please forgive me.”

******

But we may have to admit that we cannot even cry out sincerely about our inability to cry out in spontaneous love. What then? At least you should cry out, lamenting your inability to even feel any inability: “My dear Lord, I am just a dull stone. I cannot chant Hare Kṛṣṇa with any quality, only mechanically. I cannot even lament my inability.” Somehow or other, come out with an utterance, a cry. Do not remain a dull stone without feeling. Starting immediately from whatever point you are at (no matter how low), utter the available cry of your heart and go on from there.

Excerpts From GN Press

From You Cannot Leave Boston: My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume 2

pp. 122-28

October 1969

Tittenhurst

15th October, 1969

My Dear Satsvarupa,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated October 10, 1969, with the deeds enclosed. I do not understand the technical language, but I can follow that there is a property in the name of the society. Yes, Krishna is the Proprietor of not only this property, but all the properties of all the universes. He is the Supreme Enjoyer of everything, and He is the most Beloved, Sincere Friend of everybody. That is a fact. People do not know it or they have forgotten it, and our Krishna Consciousness Movement is trying to understand this philosophy and make others understand it. So you are a sincere devotee of Krishna and He has given you a great opportunity of service, perhaps #1 in all the centers. You are the only pioneer center who possess your own property and press. I am so glad to learn that things are going on nicely and Krishna is giving you good income also. Please therefore manage things very nicely, both husband and wife and other assistants. You are also very fortunate to have an assistant like Giriraj. This boy has so quickly taken up the Krishna Consciousness cause and I am very much pleased with his behavior. Now Advaita should be assisted by some other intelligent man. Jadurany should be given sufficient space for her painting work, assisted by other artists. And Giriraj is the right leader of Samkirtan Party. I am sorry that Murari has left. Pray to Krishna that he may come back again soon. Yes, this Uher tape recorder is very nice. It can act both as tape recorder and dictaphone also. It has got exactly the same speed for direct typewriting, but because you have not got a tape recorder that plays at this dictaphone speed, we send you higher speed tapes.

In BTG the rasa leela episode cannot be published. We are writing on the activities of Krishna and rasa leela is one of the most important Pastimes of His transcendental activities. Therefore it must be published in the book, but it cannot be published in any public paper. That is the instruction of my Guru Maharaja. Actually, rasa leela means to curb down the lusty propensities of the conditioned soul. Unfortunately, it acts differently on the conditioned soul if he is not prepared to understand what is Krishna. So do not try to print this.

Yes, I am very much anxious to go to Boston as soon as possible, but at the same time I want to see London center well established. Since I have come here Krishna has given us our permanent place which was in dispute at 7, Bury Place. It is very well situated, and perhaps London center will also come out very successful in the near future. The Hare Krishna record is going on in England nicely, and I heard that in Australia it stands 4th on the list of 50 important records.

I have heard also from Brahmananda that he plans to spend 3 days per week at Boston, but I have also heard that during his absence 3 devotees have left the temple. So things should be managed so nicely that our devotees may not leave us. We get a devotee after great endeavor, and we must train such devotee in a nice way so that he may not go back and be at large in the clutches of Maya. I think I shall visit Boston in December surely, if not in November, and I shall let you know the exact time and date. As you are talking of myself that I am your only shelter, similarly I am always thinking that you all boys and girls are only my hopes. When I was first in Boston in the same Commonwealth Port I was thinking how I shall be able to establish my mission in this country. Now, by Krishna’s Grace, the time has come when I see Boston is the first center and in Boston we have got so many nice devotees.

Please offer my blessings to all the others. I hope this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

P.S. Ask Dayananda to write me. He is so nice boy and I want to hear from him. Recently I got one letter from Nandarani. She is so nice as her husband.

In a previous letter, Prabhupāda asked me about the deed for the new house. I wrote to him and enclosed a copy of it. We were pleased and proud that it had finally come through. Prabhupāda didn’t only want to look at the deed, he wanted to keep it on file. After all, this was his property. In the space marked “owner,” I had written in “Kṛṣṇa.” I not only wrote it in, but I pointed it out to Prabhupāda. We all felt good about calling Kṛṣṇa the proprietor of this house. We had just begun to understand how present Kṛṣṇa was in our lives and how actively He moved on His devotees’ behalf.

Prabhupāda again replied in a sober way: “Yes, Krishna is the Proprietor of not only this property, but all the properties of all the universes. He is the Supreme Enjoyer of everything, and He is the most Beloved, Sincere Friend of everybody. That is a fact.” He exposed my knowledge as theoretical by expressing his own realization. God owns all of the houses on the block, although people claim them as their own. Receiving this letter made us more conscious of this point.

I also became aware that I had missed Prabhupāda’s point by pressing my own. Prabhupāda wasn’t joking. He took Kṛṣṇa’s proprietorship very seriously. Therefore, he paraphrased Bhagavad-gītā 5.29, bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ, sarva-loka-maheśvaram: Kṛṣṇa is the supreme proprietor of all the planets, the supreme enjoyer, and the supreme friend.

Prabhupāda was guru, heavy, and as disciples, we tended to be light. If we joked with him in a lighthearted way, he would speak the Absolute Truth and force us to become silent and serious. Therefore, it is better to approach the spiritual master in a serious and sober mood. Sobriety shouldn’t smother our affection, however. The relationship between guru and disciple is similar to the relationship between father and son. The disciple is allowed to be himself, to say something light or something perhaps not steeped in siddhānta provided that when the spiritual master brings the discussion to the absolute level, the disciple becomes attentive to what the spiritual master says. That balance of heavy and light adds sweetness to the relationship. In effect, in a childlike way, I said, “Look, Prabhupāda,” and Prabhupāda as my father responded with affection, “Yes, my dear son, but actually you should know that Kṛṣṇa is the owner of everything.” This balance of light and heavy can set the stage for a regular exchange between guru and disciple.

Neither is there any harm in being corrected by the spiritual master. When we spoke to Prabhupāda, it immediately became obvious that we were speaking to someone grave, to a pure devotee who knew Kṛṣṇa. Still, we couldn’t immediately change ourselves and take on the gravity of Mahārāja Parīkṣit as he questioned Śukadeva Gosvāmī. We were who we were and Prabhupāda accepted that. When Prabhupāda gave Bhāgavatam lectures, for example, we would listen and be pleased. When the lecture was over, we would revert back to our absorption in the immediate. At least now “the immediate” meant service in his mission.

We didn’t expect to associate with Prabhupāda as equals. Sometimes we asked Prabhupāda questions and he would not feel obliged to answer our question directly. Sometimes he jumped off the question into what he wanted to say to us. Because we recognized that Prabhupāda was a pure devotee, we thought of him as a different category of being. He wasn’t an ordinary man who was obliged to respond to us on our level. Even externally, he was so much older than we were, and he came from a completely different culture. If he changed the nature of a conversation, we always listened respectfully and tried to follow his mood.

Few devotees can imitate Prabhupāda’s power in these ways. It also seems that devotees are more demanding now, that what they are saying is important and that the spiritual master must speak on their level in order to answer them. The spiritual master may say what is on his mind, but the disciple often comes back and says, “Yes, but that’s not what I meant.” We did not behave in this way with Prabhupāda; neither did Prabhupāda feel obliged to respond to us if we did.

Even though we cannot imitate Prabhupāda, it is important for devotees who have accepted senior devotees as their spiritual master to understand this principle and to allow the spiritual master to function as guru. If they treat him as an ordinary man, then the basis of affection and surrender cannot form itself properly in the relationship. Even if someone is close to the spiritual master’s age and level of spiritual advancement, a disciple should not question the difference between him and his spiritual master. Rather, the disciple has to give the relationship permission to take place according to the classical model.

From Writing Sessions at Manu’s House

pp. 74-76

10:07 A.M., Shed

Struggle to get here without increasing eye ache, through wet rushes (green fields, thistles). Scared a pheasant—complete surprise to her as I approached softly chanting—she flew up squawking—and I also called out in alarm. My heart wants calm.

Now, I am free to say even the little things. You await some music tapes in the mail like children’s toys, for sense pleasure, even though you know you probably won’t care for them because they’re not directly Kṛṣṇa conscious (although you think it’s possible, they could be included within Kṛṣṇa consciousness, Vivaldi and Desmond)—and because they are not soft and calm enough to qualify as medicine, to listen to when my head pressure mounts. When I’m dipping. When the body wants rest. When the head feels pressure.

I did not have time for a late morning Caitanya-caritāmṛta reading and I opted for this writing. I do remember, however, the branches of the tree … and my desire to continue reading. Earlier this morning I read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s purport—biographies on Jīva Gosvāmī and Rūpa and Sanātana. Now coming up is Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī. Big branches. Jīva and Sanātana not only wrote books but they saw people, especially Vaiṣṇavas, and helped them. Jīva trained the big three, Narottama, Śrīnivāsa and Dukhi Kṛṣṇa dāsa, and they took the Goswamis’ books to Bengal. And Jīva Goswami blessed Krsnadasa Kaviraja and also Śrīnivāsa and he received Ma Jāhnavī and many other Vaiṣṇavas who came to Vṛndāvana. Not that the Goswamis were always in seclusion.

******

I want to recover the sense that writing is an act itself and doesn’t have to strive to become a book. You just do it and the act of dictating onto a tape and even making it into a private edition is part of the bhajana. Beyond that it’s the editor’s work. I am interested in it but it’s not my direct work. Write like that as you go into October, repeated acts of kindness.

2:50 P.M., Shed

You don’t want to write so much. You are glad (glad?) your headaches have finally cleared after all morning of waiting for it. And now that you are free, you have “nothing” to say. You read a little more, names of the branches of the Caitanya tree. That’s all.

Dry pen. Bottle of water.

Fly bumping against the pane but I won’t work to get him out (two of them). And don’t correct.

Lord Caitanya’s arms upraised imploring everyone to chant like Him, surrender to Lord Kṛṣṇa by chanting His holy names. I’m planning to go over to the island at 4 pm to see Rādhā-Govinda. Prepare yourself. I will bow down to Them and pray to Them. May I remember Their forms as I travel.

Thinking of items to put in the van for months of travel, and writing ‘stops,’ places where I’ll stop and write. It must come out of a life of devotional service. That doesn’t mean you have to scoop news out of things you just did: “Went to the dentist yesterday, traveled to the temple today, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class tomorrow.” Go deeper. Do you want to serve the devotees, especially your disciples? How can you best serve them? Standard answer: Make yourself perfect and then you can serve, āpani ācari prabhu jīvere śikhāya.

Also, even before you are a perfect example, extend yourself to them. Go sit with a sick friend, he’s still in trauma from a car accident. Give each what he wants or what he or she can take and what you are capable of giving. Mostly that means I speak śāstra simply.

******

Pleasure boats go by distracting me from writing. Listen man, there’s no way you can do this.

Whatcha talkin’ about? Lord Kṛṣṇa’s activities? Give up my diary-self and what’s left? Pass up dreams. Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa.

******

Hi ho. Aren’t Aindra’s bhajanas enough?
I am here boasting.
I drew another Art picture
of a man and a man-woman,
house and stick figures and
dog and tree. No van.

O Kṛṣṇa, the time of Lord Brahmā ends in death. An ant may be amazed if it could hear how long a human lives. And we are amazed to hear the length of Brahmā’s one day. Geez. Christ’s compassion and his suffering. Śrīla Prabhupāda said he didn’t really suffer. Christians say he did.

Got to raise this writing above the news of just this day. And while it’s good to say what you just read, we also need more than that. Gee whiz. Ceeripes, I am a practicing devotee thirty years and a pre-Kṛṣṇa conscious fellow only twenty-six years, so you ought to tell more devotee stories, yes? The time we acquiesced, the time we felt beholden. Hung the wash on the line in between white painted log poles stuck in the ground by my dad. Mom hung the wash and brought it in. Windy day. Pulley creaked like the sound of a blue jay. Horrible, blind lost days and years, don’t remember them as “nice.”

Try to recall surrendering to guru and believing in Kṛṣṇa and worshiping Him. Did you ever have a profound spiritual experience and can you tell us about it? Uh … I cried once during a Rātha-yātrā film shown in the storefront in Allston. I … gave many lectures. Some said I was good and simple. But a profound spiritual experience? Can’t recall. To meet our spiritual master was very spiritual and memorable but he didn’t create miraculous auras. He taught and you surrendered to him as much as you could. Did what he said. He approved of you as a bona fide devotee. O dear master, I thrived on such praise.

O dear master, where are you now? Am I afraid of you? Built up an image in my mind of displeased, heavy, etc., or you with the managers. It would hardly be possible for you to please all factions that now exist if you came back. And no one does that, comes back. When Rūpa Gosvāmī left, he didn’t come back unless you want to say he reincarnated as Viśvanātha Cakravartī. But Viśvanātha was a new individual different than Rūpa Gosvāmī.

From 108 Japa Poems

pp. 77-80

63 Numbers

Sixteen rounds in less
than two hours. You
are a speeder, but
are you going over the
limit? No. Prabhupāda
said sixteen rounds should
take two hours, but
the quality is most
important, not galloping
like a race horse.
I think it was all right,
but there is always room
for improvement. You
can sink more into
the feeling for Nāma
Prabhu beyond the numbers.
1,728 is just a number,
the real point is devotion.

64 In a Row

Chanting sixteen rounds all
in a row, makes a
man happy and
satisfied. Prabhupāda
said when he published a book
he felt he had “conquered”
an empire. Chanting sixteen
rounds makes you feel you
have conquered inertia
and pleased your spiritual
master. Does it mean you
have to start at 1 A.M.?
Maybe not—that’s hard
to do—but that’s what
happened today. It is
good to rise somewhat early
and say as many as you
can in quiet, peaceful
time, awake and alert,
listening to the mantras
in your mind, and
remembering the value
of this gift.

65 Endure My Soul

The japa man does
not choose to bash
himself. He stands
(or bows) before Nāma
Prabhu and claims
he’s done his duty.
We know he’s not
in śuddha-nāma, and
we are humbled by
that fact. “One
should chant the holy
name in a humble state
of mind thinking oneself lower
than a straw in the street,”
This is a qualification for
constant chanting. I
keep my place before the
Lord and patiently
endure my soul.

66 Quantity or Quality

Quantity and quality,
the quality is more
important. I chanted
them as quickly as
possible and aware
of each mantra as it
passed through my mind.
Sooner than usual,
I finished 16.
But something was missing,
and it’s elusive to gain,
The heart fixed on Rādhā
and Kṛṣṇa. You solace
yourself, “But the names
are Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa”—
and yet
and yet …

67 Was it Good?

Who is to say when your
chanting is good? It’s up
to Kṛṣṇa. But you get a
feeling of your own, and this
morning I felt lively and
rapid and attentive to the names.
On days like this you are
pleased with yourself, but
you don’t know what Kṛṣṇa
is rating you. If I feel good
does it mean He’s pleased?
It’s a mystery, but at least
when you are not drowsy,
distracted or in pain there is
a better chance for
reciprocation with Rādhā
and Kṛṣṇa. You pray that
is so.

68 The Elusive Perfection

To be perfect is very hard,
seemingly impossible.
But to make partial achievement
is highly satisfying. I
accumulate my rounds in the
brāhma-muhūrta, wide awake
and attentive to the Names.
To perform the act is very
easy, just the repetition
of the sounds,
but to do it with love is an elusive
attainment. You relax and
utter harināma, but the
kind of ecstatic emotion described
in the chanting of Caitanya Mahāprabhu
is far away, like a star
high in the predawn sky. I
merely look upon it from
my space on the ground and
yearn for the day when
my taste will increase,
and I can rise to the star.

69 Messengers of Yamarāja

Your chanting keeps away
the messengers of Yamarāja
who come to pull out the
soul at death and deliver
him for punishment.
You pray that the Viṣṇudūtas
will come for you and
deliver you back to Godhead
or at least to a Vaiṣṇava
human birth. So much
depends upon chanting with
attention and devotion.
Can you do it? Can you do
the right thing? Sometimes
you assess yourself as
doing the right process
but doing it poorly and
you don’t know your destination.
Only try harder and
keep awake, whisper
the names and concentrate.

70 He is Watching

You hold yourself awake
and chant the mahā-mantra.
You’re aware that Kṛṣṇa
is watching you and
reciprocating as you say
His names. Your mind
is attracted to the names
and taken off other subjects.
Japa is the bedrock of
the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.
He has charged you with
the responsibility to chant
a required number of names.
This is Vaiṣṇava behavior,
as prescribed by Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

In Vṛndāvana, He chanted
and induced even the cows,
deer, trees and creepers to
say the holy names in an
echo to His kīrtana.
I think of Him now,
Mahāprabhu, the great chanter,
and I stumble in His footsteps
with awareness that this
is the only way.

71 Same Place, Same Time

It is good to chant
japa in the same place
every day, at the same
time, and early morning
is the best time for spiritual
practices. You rise, and before
engaging in any worldly
or passionate endeavors, you
calmly sit alone or with
friends, and utter the holy names.
This morning I’m hearing in a
peaceful place, begging to Nāma
Prabhu to allow me to taste
the nectar, begging to place
my attention in the syllables
of the names, with faith
that this is nondifferent
than direct association with
the Divine Couple, Rādhā and
Kṛṣṇa.

From Mama Tejas: A Spark of His Splendor

pp. 98-101

On the back of the door to the room was a large sheet of white card on which were columns of quotations written by Seymour and Buddy from various world literatures. Zooey starts by reading verses from Bhagavad-gītā, and includes an interesting line from Epictetus that resonates with something that devotees quote: “Not a blade of grass moves without the will of the Supreme Lord,” only this one says, “I move not without Thy knowledge,” which is paraphrasing Ulysses and Socrates and is getting at something slightly different—omniscience rather than omnipotence (p.176).

Other quotes from the back of the door could be discussed but they are not so overt in their Kṛṣṇa conscious content. Yet others clearly possess God consciousness but because of the source (Ramakrishna for instance) the devotee reader is on guard because of the association with impersonalism and Māyāvādism. One such quote, however, from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, seems on point: “… Do you think God does not know that He is being worshiped in the images and pictures? If a worshiper should make a mistake, do you not think God will know his intent?” (p.177). The final quote given from the door, from Mu-Mon-Kwan, clearly possesses impersonal and Māyāvāda connotations (p.178).

There, Zooey quit reading. Once again, he leaned forward on his elbows and buried his face in his hands. This time he sat motionless for almost a half hour (p.181). Zooey resumes his conversation with Franny by calling her on an internal phone line from Buddy and Seymour’s room but pretending to be Buddy. As the conversation progresses, Franny realizes it is Zooey she’s talking to and so they pick up their conversation from earlier. Zooey apologizes for apparently criticizing her faith in and practice of saying the Jesus Prayer (p.193). Zooey says, “I suppose I more-or-less called to tell you to go on with your Jesus Prayer if you want to. I mean that’s your business. It’s a goddam nice prayer, and don’t let anybody tell you anything different.” This is a lesson Śrīla Prabhupāda also taught the devotees, that they should not attempt to undermine or discredit a person’s faith in their own genuine religion:

… we should not criticize others’ methods of religion. There are different types of religious systems operating under different qualities of material nature … A devotee, instead of criticizing such systems, will encourage the followers to stick to their principles so that gradually they can come to the platform of religion in goodness. Simply by criticizing them, a devotee’s mind will be agitated. Thus, a devotee should tolerate and learn to stop agitation.

—Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.22.24, purport

Zooey continues to counsel Franny, modifying his approach so that he is helping her to better understand her chosen method of prayer:

If you’ve had a freakish education, at least use it, use it. You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don’t realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don’t see how you’ll ever move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. ‘Cessation from all hankerings.’”

—Franny and Zooey, p.196

This bears some similarity to Bhagavad-gītā 2.48:

yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi
saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya
siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā
samatvaṁ yoga ucyate

Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.

Zooey then posits that Franny’s hankering in a previous life to be a good actor is why that is what she is now, and rather than walk out of it she should do it for God (p.197) and not waste any of the small amount of time that we get in this life. Here he seems to invoke Kṛṣṇa’s instruction in Bhagavad-gītā 9.27:

yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi
yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat
yat tapasyasi kaunteya
tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam

Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer or give away, and whatever austerities you perform—do that, O son of Kuntī, as an offering to Me.

Franny’s a good girl. She’s an actress, and her brother Zooey, who is in another room, but Franny doesn’t know it, has telephoned her and has encouraged her to be the actress she is, which is her dharma, the theater her prabhu-datta-deśa, her place to live a saintly life.

Finally, Zooey encourages Franny to do her best as an actor and not worry about the audience’s reaction, because she’s doing her best for God.

To summarize, Franny’s brother Zooey teaches Franny and enlightens her. He does this by telling her she should take up her actress career again but offer the results to Jesus. She should be her natural self and be an actress, but she should do it for Kṛṣṇa. So, this has a bhakti element to it. He furthermore says that Jesus is everywhere. Jesus is everywhere hints at Kṛṣṇa’s statement in Bhagavad-gītā 6.30 about a person who sees Him everywhere:

yo māṁ paśyati sarvatra
sarvaṁ ca mayi paśyati
tasyāhaṁ na praṇaśyāmi
sa ca me na praṇaśyati

For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me.

From Prabhupada Appreciation

pp. 184-87

ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA AS THEOLOGIAN

Śrīla Prabhupāda was a theologian. We do not often think of him as such, but according to the dictionary, theology is “a science which treats the facts and phenomena of religion,” and a theologian is “one who is learned in the science of religion.” Upon hearing the phrases, “science of religion” or “science of God,” it becomes evident that Śrīla Prabhupāda was a theologian. Śrīla Prabhupāda himself translated the verse, “kibā vipra kibā ’nyāsī” (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 8.128) as “Whoever knows the science of Kṛṣṇa is guru.”

Prabhupāda described Kṛṣṇa consciousness as a science. Although it is not exactly the same as a material science, it has scientific laws of cause and effect, and can be studied both through theory and practice. Prabhupāda wanted to appeal to people’s respect for scientific authority in his use of the phrase “Kṛṣṇa conscious science,” but he also wanted to show that Kṛṣṇa consciousness was a process with a definite and determinable outcome for one who followed it carefully.

In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Prabhupāda used the word “science” in many places. One example of this mentions science four times:

The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the science of Kṛṣṇa, the Absolute Personality of Godhead of whom we have preliminary information from the text of the Bhagavad-gītā. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has said that anyone, regardless of what he is, who is well-versed in the science of Kṛṣṇa (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Bhagavad-gītā), can become an authorized preacher or preceptor in the science of Kṛṣṇa. There is a need for the science of Kṛṣṇa in human society for the good of the suffering humanity of the world, and we simply request the leaders of all nations to pick up this science for their own good … (Introduction to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam)

And Kṛṣṇa Himself says in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.32), “Of all sciences I am the spiritual science of the self.”

But Prabhupāda was not a theologian in the Western academic, speculative sense of the term, and he criticized such persons. He used the word theologian in the 6th Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, in a translation of the prayers of Vṛtāsura:

Many modern theologians argue about right and wrong without knowing what is actually right. Their arguments are always false and their judgements inconclusive because they have no authorized process with which to gain knowledge of You. Because their minds are agitated by scriptures containing false conclusions, they are unable to understand the truth concerning You. Furthermore, because of polluted eagerness to arrive at the right conclusion, their theories are incapable of revealing You, who are transcendental to their material conceptions. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.9.36)

The interesting part of Prabhupāda’s purport to this verse is that it exposes theologians as being baffled by the contradictions in the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He says, “Nondevotees cannot understand the contradictions present in the Supreme Lord and His devotees. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord says, bhaktyā mām abhijānānti: The transcendental pastimes can be understood through devotional service. To nondevotees they are inconceivable.” (Bhagavad-gītā 18.55) Prabhupāda’s translated phrase, “because of polluted eagerness to arrive at the right conclusion” is also interesting. Theologians may eagerly want to know the truth, but they are polluted. This is similar to the phrase, “aviśuddha buddhaya,” impure intelligence.

On some of his morning walks, Śrīla Prabhupāda discussed the latest trends in theological speculation, such as “God is dead.” Prabhupāda would call for Prajāpati Prabhu, who was a graduate student in theology. “So Mr. Theologician, what are the theologists saying?”

Prabhupāda also met with various professors of religion. Sometimes he would challenge the scholars about their knowledge of God. The scholars usually admitted that they did not know. Prabhupāda would then tell them that were not actually theologians if they did not know God. He said they are only speculating, and that this was theosophy rather than theology.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was not this type of theologian; he was a theologian in the tradition of the great ācāryas who systematically studied the śāstra and who guided the whole Vedic culture. These great teachers are referred to in Prabhupāda’s purport to the Bhagavad-gītā (7.15) where he discusses the four kinds of pious and impious people. Śrīla Prabhupāda asks the question, “If surrender to Kṛṣṇa gives liberation, why don’t learned people and leaders of society surrender?” His answer is that truly learned people do surrender:

Those really learned leaders of society, like Brahmā, Śiva, Kapila, the Kumāras … and later on Mādhvācārya, Rāmānujācārya, Śrī Caitanya and many others—who are faithful philosophers, politicians, educators, scientists, etc., surrender to the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the all-powerful authority. Those who are not actually philosophers, scientists, educators, administrators, but who pose themselves as such do not accept the path of the Supreme Lord. They have no idea of God.

There are examples of great Vedic theologians in the history of the Vaiṣṇava sampradāyas. For example, Rāmānujācārya was born in 1037 AD in South India. He wrote three major commentaries, Vedartha-sangraha—on the Vedas, Śrī-bhaṣya—on Vedānta-sūtra, and Bhagavad-gītā-bhaṣya. He is best known for his robust presentation of Vaiṣṇavism and his opposition to impersonal monism. Rāmānuja expounded viśiṣṭādvaita, or qualified nondualism. He taught that there is a difference between the Supreme Brahman and the jīva, and he accepted bhakti as the siddhānta of the Vedas. On the other hand, Rāmānujā accepted the Vedic statements concerning the qualitative oneness of the Supreme and the jīvas. He thus presented his philosophy of qualified oneness by giving logical reasons to show that the Absolute includes both what is changing (in the material world and the jīvas caught up in saṁsāra) and what is changeless (the transcendental Lord).

Another great ācārya in our disciplic succession was Mādhvācārya (1239-1319), a theologian who devoted himself to combating Śaṅkara’s impersonal monistic philosophy. Mādhvācārya taught a doctrine called śuddha-dvaita (pure dualism), which states that there are three entities—the Supreme Lord, the jīva, and the material world. Even more emphatically than Rāmānuja, Madhvācārya maintained that God and the living entities are eternally distinct. Whereas Śaṅkara has described the Lord as the material cause of the cosmos, Mādhva accepted the direct meaning of the smṛti–śāstras and held that the Lord is transcendental to the material world, which is the product of His inferior energy.

Mādhvācārya maintained that although the jīvas are superior to matter, they are distinct from the Lord and His servitors. The Lord is independent and the jīvas are totally dependent on Him. Mādhva taught that the Lord creates, maintains and annihilates the cosmos and at the same time, in His original form as Kṛṣṇa, the Lord remains superior to manifest and unmanifest matter. In addition, each person molds his own karma. Through bhakti, one can eliminate all his karma and return to his original position of serving Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual world.

Śrīla Prabhupāda approved of the use of theological argument to support God consciousness. He mentions this in a purport about Lord Caitanya’s logical arguments to defeat some Buddhists. “Those who are preachers in ISKCON will certainly meet many people who believe in intellectual arguments. Most of these people do not believe in the authority of the Vedas. Nevertheless, they accept intellectual speculation or argument. Therefore the preachers of Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be prepared to defeat others by argument, just as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu did.” (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 9.49) But Prabhupāda acknowledges that you cannot actually know the Absolute Truth by argument alone because one person may be more expert in the art of argument than another. Therefore, the path of argument is never safe.

From Prabhupada Meditations, Volume 1

pp. 65-69

Why Didn’t I Keep a Diary in 1966?

(In the mood of Satsvarupa dasa brahmacari)

Swamiji, they want to know
why I didn’t keep a diary
filled with the life
of those days.

I thought everything was in your words, and they were in books and tape recording.. I also made notes of them.

What is it I should have saved for the future? Should I have kept notes like, “He has brown eyes . . . . . Today Hayagriva made a joke . . . I feel happy in Krsna consciousness, haven’t smoked pot in two months?” Maybe I thought it was maya.

But I’m sorry now
I didn’t keep a journal of it all.
I had no presence of mind—
for me the main thing
wasthat you were restoring me to life—
I was fully occupied
holding on to your lotus feet.
Maybe I thought there was no need
to write it down because
we would never forget
everything that you did and said.
No, there’s no excuse for it.
Please bless me now, Master,
to live in those days
remembering your kirtanas and
the time I met you
on the street and bowed down
on the sidewalk before you.
As I rose you touched me with your hand.
You were in ecstasy!
On your morning walk—
and I proceeded to the welfare office
to break through the line
of angry workers on strike.

“Let me meditate upon him being enthused“

aim guru devaya vidmahe
krsnandaya dimahe
tan no nanga pracodayat

Let us try to understand my spiritual master who is always in blissful Krsna consciousness. Let me meditate on him being enthused as he enthused us.

The gayatri mantra provides us with a meditation on the spiritual master which may be applied to Srila Prabhupada. There are actually two mantras to the spiritual master in the gayatri. The first is aim gurave namah: “I make my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master.” This means we should approach Srila Prabhupada not as a buddy, but as we would approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead, bowing down and offering obeisances. Srila Prabhupada actually is a most intimate friend, but he should not be taken as an ordinary person.

The gayatri mantra advises us “to meditate on him being enthused.” One time when he was commenting on the word enthusiasm (utsaha), as used in Rupa Gosvami’s Upadesamrta, Srila Prabhupada gave himself as an example. He said, “How could I have come to America at such an old age unless I was enthusiastic?” He was enthusiastic to come to America because his guru ordered, and when for a whole year he got almost no response in America, Srila Prabhupada remained patient, but still enthusiastic. That enthusiasm can be heard on tape recordings of Prabhupada lecturing on the Lower East Side, where his voice often cracks with earnestness to deliver the message of Krsna consciousness.
Prabhupada was so enthusiastic to write Srimad-Bhagavatam that he would rise at one in the morning to do so. His composing of his purports was the perfect example of combined patience and enthusiasm. As he said, “Little drops of water wear away the stone. In this way, I’ve written all these books.”
“Let us meditate”—the gayatri mantra advises, and so one can continue on his own, or in the association of devotees. to think about and to discuss the enthusiastic moods and activities of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada’s translation contains a particularly interesting phrase, “Let me meditate on him being enthused as he enthused us.” A genuine disciple has become enthusiastic in devotional service, and he knows that this is due to the enthusiasm of his spiritual master.

We may meditate on how our enthusiastic spiritual master has transferred this sakti of utsaha to us. Prabhupada said that the mother of his disciple, Acyutananda, complained that her son used to lounge around the house all the time and was unwilling to go on errands. But since he had come to live with Swamiji, he was always enthusiastic to cook and to run any errands asked by his spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada was also fond of a pamphlet produced by a Christian minister in Boston which made reference to Srila Prabhupada’s enthusiastic disciples. The minister said that he met a Hare Krsna devotee giving out literature in the neighborhood of the church. The priest said, “These are actually our boys, but previously they were never interested in going to church. Now they have become mad after God.” Srila Prabhupada also said that it was only by the enthusiasm of his disciples that the Krsna Consciousness Movement was spreading around the world.

When we do not feel enthusiastic, let us meditate on the enthusiasm of Srila Prabhupada. Let it ignite within us our natural enthusiasm to serve Krsna. This is krsna-ananda, which motivates all the thoughts and activities of a pure devotee of the Lord. Whether he is grave and silent, or dancing in the kirtana of Lord Caitanya, whether he is being honored by many followers, or treated as an outcaste, the pure Vaisnava is always merged in enthusiasm and bliss. Let us meditate upon him being enthused just as he enthused us.

<< Free Write Journal #385

Free Write Journal #387 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

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ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Japa Reform Notebook (part 1)

At 26 Second Avenue in 1966, His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda would personally lead us in kīrtana as well as japa. After morning kīrtana just before his lecture, he would order: “Chant one round.” Then he would finger his japa beads and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. And the assembled devotees, seated on the floor, would chant aloud their individual japa.

******

I used to both chant and finger the beads intently. One time, absorbed in this chanting and fingering, I looked up at Śrīla Prabhupāda and was surprised to find him looking right at me with great concern. It seemed that he saw me, although a most fallen wretch, struggling intently to chant, and this caused him great compassion and concern. It seemed as if even he was awed at the mercy of the holy name.

******

I also remember my first chanting of japa in my apartment around the corner from the temple. Fingering the beads and passing them through my hands gave me a sensation of opulence and luxury. I felt like an ancient sādhu. I recall trying to chant clearly and intently.

******

Over the years, however, my japa became less distinct. More and more my attention would wander. I began to think of other devotional duties I had to perform during the day. I neglected to carefully pronounce each word. Sometimes I would attempt to reform the quality of my sixteen rounds, but eventually the bad habits of unclear pronunciation and wandering attention would creep back in. Although I would preach to other devotees, “It is an offense to be inattentive while chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa,” I would repeatedly commit the offense myself. How many other offenses I committed due to the offense against the holy name (nāma aparādha), I cannot say. How much I slowed down my devotional growth, I do not know, but certainly it was not auspicious.

******

But then I received anew the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda and Kṛṣṇa in the form of a Godbrother’s instructions on japa. I became determined to reform, to chant my japa pronouncing each word and syllable. My japa improved immediately. I then understood the chanting was most important and could not be neglected. I felt I was learning a crucial, confidential secret, although Śrīla Prabhupāda is constantly repeating it, “Chant sixteen rounds and avoid the offenses in chanting.” It is a practice. It takes practice. Whatever you practice, the body can learn to do. Chant, chant, chant!

******

Most difficult is controlling the mind. But the chanting itself is intended to control the mind. So you must practice until you become expert, until you are perfectly pronouncing the holy names and controlling the mind.

******

Maintain a fighting spirit. The mind always wanders. The senses always tend to drowse in the early morning hours. Therefore, good japa is a matter of successfully combating these things. Like the example of steering a car: keeping control means keeping from going out of control—it is natural that the car heads off the road.

******

You can expect difficulty after many years of offensive chanting. As Śrī Kṛṣṇa says, “The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul and his enemy as well. For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his very mind will be the greatest enemy” (Bhagavad-gītā 6.5–6). As for controlling the mind while chanting japa: “It is undoubtedly very difficult to curb the restless mind, but it is possible by constant practice and detachment” (Bg. 6.34). Wherever the mind goes due to its restless, flickering nature, bring it back under the control of the higher self. You can only pray to Kṛṣṇa that, with practice, sleep and inattentiveness will be overcome.

Excerpts From GN Press

From Last Days of the Year

pp. 64-68

Notes #8

Happy quiet fifty-fifth birthday. I’m not dying yet. At least that’s my opinion.

I let myself write freely because it’s a good method to lead me to interesting thoughts. I mean, to provoke helpful truths to appear—truths to live by and all that rot.

I write words too strong to hurt myself, words of a mudslinger, bomb-thrower. I say “rot” and I say “fool” and all that, but actually I am a tender fillet of sole. See what I mean? When you write without control, that’s what comes.

How it comes is that several subpersons throw in their points. It’s like several artists painting on the same canvas. It’s not the best arrangement. One wants to paint something tender, while another throws on the alkaline, throws sand into the sweet rice, and laughs like a madman.

Still, I have faith that if I can write with my whole self, digest experience, and speak with conviction, the whole me will come out. Hari Sauri Prabhu said that when Srila Prabhupada was going down the elevator, about to leave the New York ISKCON building and never come back, he said with complete gravity and clarity, “I simply want the benediction, like Arjuna, to fight for Krsna to the last breath.” Complete conviction and clarity. My whole self writing: it will be good for me. Nothing squeaky or held back. Don’t let those points screaming for attention lie by the wayside. Get it all out.

It’s Moksada Ekadasi today and the flames are jumping in the fireplace. I’m feeling okay to be here. We have planned no big escapes andexpect not big revelations from Krsna other than what he is kindly giving. Prabhupada said we have to become fire to enter fire. We have to have a suitable body to enter the spiritual atmosphere. When we are fully serving Krsna, then Hrslkesa will reveal Himself to us, but if we remain unchanged, then how can we expect . . .

I d o n ’t expect, although I aspire. I want the full darsana, as Narada received, and I want to have it as a follower of Lord Caitanya. Therefore, I pray in the sannyasa-mantra every day to offer myself as a seed into the yajnic fire of gopi-bhava. I want to be pure, as Prabhupada expected.

Since it is my birthday today, I’m going to allow myself the gift of free-writing. But first I need a sponge with which to wipe my floor, and some paper towels, and extra pieces of wood for the fire. Give me that benediction. Allow me to let off steam and to talk tonight in a therapeutic way about why I allowed myself to become guru in New York and what subsequently happened.

I also want to think about how I can write more sensitive letters to my correspondents, take more time at it, and of our travel plans. I would like to think over what someone said: “You may like the excitement of traveling to Sicily or Gita Nagari each year, but you will not always be able to do it just because it happens to enliven you. Your health may not permit it.”

I cannot imitate Prabhupada (I just read how Prabhupada vomited twice in the car to Bhaktivedanta Manor and asked for a wheelchair on the plane, but when it didn’t come immediately, he walked . . . ). I can’t keep going as relentlessly as he did, and neither is my traveling worth so much. The movement does not depend on me to do it. I have to consider all that. My health slows me, and my lack of advancement. I am neither a great preacher nor an absorbed babaji.

From Dear Sky: Letters from a Sannyasi

pp. 59-60

March 19, Trinidad

Dear mosquitoes,

This is a warning: if you come near me, I’ll kill you.

I realize this is about as silly as you can get, thinking you can write letters to mosquitoes. I might as well write a letter to the fireflies. I could say, “You look enchanting the way you light up spots of darkness in the tropical jungle of this backyard.” I might as well write a letter to the little white cat. Its face has been roughed-up and it’s not so pretty to look at. It roams around this house where they’re letting me stay. It probably kills mice and rats. But this letter is a warning to the mosquitoes.

Life is rich and I’m trying to record it in a Krsna conscious way. There’s so much I want to say that I can’t say it all. There are different people on my mind. I am thinking about Vrndavana, thinking about how to advance in Krsna consciousness, thinking things I don’t dare to say, things that are here and things that are far away. Out of all this richness, it’s natural to think of somebody to share it with. If you’re lucky you can find a person, a close friend, and pour out everything. But when you can’t do that, then you can write a letter to a mosquito and tell him to bug off or you’ll kill him.

As poor mosquitoes, you can’t respond not only to my letter, but to my warning. All you know is blood. That’s the way the material energy is constructed. That’s your karma from the past. I suppose if I were an extremely renounced saint like the leper Vasudeva, I wouldn’t bother you in your attempt to suck my blood. And to some degree, I’m trying to tolerate you. Therefore, although I’m giving you this warning, I’m going to avoid your association entirely by getting under the mosquito net. This letter is just for any stray ones that I happen to encounter before I get under that net.

P.S. When I went in the backyard to dictate this letter to the mosquitoes, I looked out and saw the rich darkness just before night, the fireflies everywhere, and the white cat roaming around in the dark.

pp. 93-94

April 7 Marche, Italy

Dear dawn chirping birds,

My boots are making so much noise on the gravel road that I can hardly hear you singing. Now I’ve stopped to listen.

There are so many of you little fellows out there in the gray dawn that I can’t tell one from the other. Please excuse me for not knowing your names or being able to distinguish your songs. I just want to say in this letter that life on earth is made pleasant by the songs of birds. And birds come from Krsna. We hear the birds in Vmdavana, and even in the cities. They start to sing just near the end of our most intense, early morning bhajana.

Of course, I can’t talk poetically about bird-song without eventually thinking how birds are spirit souls locked in little feathery bodies (which isn’t so nice for them). The birds are also preying upon other creatures and eating them. But still, we cannot deny that the singing of birds enhances our humanness. It places us deep within our humble earthiness. Your songs bring us back to our childhoods. We remember all kinds of times, some of them hard times, when we were up in the morning and you were singing in the background.

You have hard times too, especially in winter when food is not so available. But you’re always so faithful and dutiful and, at least to us, you sound joyful early in the morning.

I hope I don’t ever get so old or self-absorbed that I stop noticing the spring and the birds’ songs. I want to always be grateful that Krsna is giving me another springtime on this earth. I think of it not in terms of mortal longevity, which is a vain pursuit, but in terms of my limited devotional service in this lifetime. I want to keep performing small acts of devotional service. I want to preach for another springtime, another summer. We belong to the earth, at least while we’re here, and then we go away. It’s Krsna’s place and His trademark is the singing of the birds.

Our appreciation of your music is part of our longing for the spiritual world. There will be birds there too. Early in the morning it’s the birds’ singing, impelled by Vmda-devi, that wakes Radha and Krsna. Will the day come when I will be able to hear the birds like that, as warnings to Radha and Krsna to wake up and go home? Will I ever have my own services to do as a servant of Their servants?

Let me share these thoughts with you, morning singers, here in Italy. In your ever-fresh quality and your undaunted courage, you are like gurus to me. I can take instruction and example even from your life of small consciousness. Hail to you, blithe spirits. Birds you never were.

From Distribute Books! Distribute Books! Distribute Books!

pp. 96-102

(Appendix—Excerpts from Prabhupada’s Letters to Disciples Worldwide)

September 8, 1974

Your letter is very much pleasing to me with the report of the book distribution. Whenever I get report of my books selling I feel strength. Even now in this weakened condition I have got strength from your report. You should know that in this work you have Krsna’s blessings… So go on with your work there in America and distribute my books to these libraries. This is very encouraging to me, to write more books.

Our books are being appreciated by learned circles, so we should take advantage. Whatever progress we have made, it is simply due to distributing these books. So go on, and do not divert your mind for a moment from this.

October 19, 1974

My request is that you print as much as possible and distribute profusely. That is the great success of our movement … Continue this work. Whenever there is any publication in any language, it enlivens me 100 times.

October 23, 1974

Regarding sankirtana and book distribution, both should go on, but book distribution is more important. It is brhad kirtana. In Tokyo airport one boy had come up to me asking if he could speak with me. I said yes and then he asked me, “Swami, where do you get all that knowledge in your books?” Of course, it is Krsna’s knowledge, not mine. But the effect is there. So for wider kirtana, book distribution is better. Book distribution is also kirtana. Regarding making hundreds of traveling parties, yes do that please as far as possible.

October 24, 1974

These statistics are very nice. I like very much to receive the report of my book sales. I think it also gives encouragement to the devotees who distribute the books. Here at Mayapur my Guru Maharaja was printing one paper. It was selling for only a few paise. Sometimes whenever one brahmacary would go to Nabadwipa and sell even a few copies, I would see my Guru Maharaja become very much pleased. Even if the brahmacary was not a very important member, my Guru Maharaja would become very, very pleased with him. He personally instructed me that books are more important than big temples. At Radha Kunda he told me that “Since constructing the big temple at Bagh Bazar (Calcutta), there have been so many difficulties; our men are envious over who will live in which room. I think it would be better to take off all the marble and sell it and print books.” He told me this personally. So I am always emphasizing book distribution. It is better kirtana. It is better than chanting. Of course, chanting should not stop, but book distribution is the best kirtana.

November 12, 1974

Regarding Gurukula, they are in financial difficulty, so introduce book distribution. Sankirtana and book distribution should be pushed side by side, and there will be no difficulties. That is our experience.

November 12, 1974

This book selling is the real preaching of our cult. Especially when you sell Caitanya-caritamrta and Srimad-Bhagavatam. They will understand what we mean by reading these books. So you organize freely. You are the incarnation of book distribution. So take the leadership and do the needful. I pray that by Krsna’s grace you will have all success. Yes, you are correct that by distributing books, that income will be sufficient for all programs.

November 21, 1974

Regarding the book distribution, apart from our books, the Communist Party has become popular simply by distributing their literatures. I know in Calcutta the Communist agents were inviting friends and reading their literature. The Russians never came to India, but by distributing literature in every language they get a pretty good number of followers. So if it is possible for ordinary, third class, mundane literature, why should not our transcendental literature create devotees all over the world? I see practically how our books and magazines are becoming popular in your country. So there is good potency for pushing on these literatures very vigorously. So organize this propaganda work very carefully and our movement will be very much successful by introducing literature from village to village. Lord Caitanya wants this, so carry out His order … So go on with your preaching work solidly. Krsna will be pleased and Caitanya Mahaprabhu will be kind. He is already kind. You simply have to go village to village, and your life will be perfect.

November 28, 1974

You know that I also was selling my books in this way to the schools and colleges and libraries. I would write, then publish, and then distribute without any help. So how much pleased I am with you that you are helping me in this mission. So go on with your work. Krsna will help you. You are sincere in your purpose. This is very important engagement of visiting the professors and the colleges and libraries, and getting the standing orders. This is the most important engagement. Do not doubt this.

December 12, 1974

Regarding introducing records in the USA, yes, why not, but do not minimize the book selling. Better if a different party is engaged in record selling, so that the book selling may not be affected. Both book selling and record selling are good, but book selling is better and permanent. Record selling is temporary … So concentrate on publishing books as far as possible and sell.

December 12, 1974

So German people are not coming to join this movement? So far I have seen your German devotees, they are very en-thusiastic and steady workers. So if you get some good souls to join, then there will be no difficulty for selling the books. So it doesn’t matter if we are selling more or less, so far the publications are there. We may sell or not, but the books must be there.

December 18, 1974

Your sankirtana reports are very encouraging, especially that one girl, Gauri dasi, who has set an all ISKCON women’s record of 108 big books. This is very wonderful. Formerly this would have been considered impossible, but now by Krsna’s grace everything is becoming possible. Encourage them all to increase more and more.

From Reading Among Friends

pp. 102-7

6:58 P.M., night notes

I am reluctant to dance the old dances of material consciousness or to open the pain of old wounds, yet when I encourage myself to open the doors in writing and write whatever comes, for me, that means that I open myself up to the entire iceberg and not just the tip. The iceberg isn’t necessarily the point; I want to penetrate deep into ice and find out where my Kṛṣṇa consciousness is. So I chip away at the ice. Shards fly past me—the old memories, the dreams, the past lives of sense gratification, the misery. No! Enough! Stop chipping!

But later I ask myself again, “Why don’t you write whatever comes?” A memory floats up—being twelve years old and lying exhausted on the grass with my baseball glove on. I smell the delicious earth-and of course I know this is the romanticized version of a fifty-six-year-old man.

Then I say again, let me shut that out. But then what does it mean to write freely? Why do you think it will lead you to Kṛṣṇa? What are you trying to expose in the free-writing? I can’t always figure it out.

There was a movie once directed by Ingmar Berman about the love between a boy and a girl who met over the summer. Of course, it portrayed sexual intimacy and romantic love as the most wonderful thing in the world. All nature was celebrating with the lovers in that movie. But then the man dies at end of the summer, and the film ends.

I used to think that—that romantic love was the most beautiful thing in the world, but I never experienced it in my own life, at least not as it is portrayed in movies. Why couldn’t I see the illusion then? Why couldn’t I understand it as something that exists only in the imagination? When I was young, I kept a photograph in my diary of a blond girl and boy sitting under a fully blossoming apple tree. I thought this photo expressed what I wanted from life. I worshipped it. But when has real life ever been like that? Poets like Shelly and Keats tried to make it seem possible. They were the Romantics. A romantic is someone who believes in something beautiful, even if it’s not true, even if it is really filled with ugliness. A romantic believes in “someday.”

That yearning for an ideal is part of who we are, but we have to find that ideal in the real world with our real selves. We cannot be trying to keep up the façade of being the supreme enjoyer. We don’t have infallible lovers and friends. Even if they don’t cheat us or leave us, they grow old and then we are cheated by death.

True love is possible only with God. People hear this and are disappointed. They can’t conceive of God as a lover. They see Him only as an old man. And even if they have some conception of God as a lover, they don’t have refinement to understand pure service and rasa. For us, our knowledge is becoming more refined. We know Kṛṣṇa as Rādhā’s lover.

I am writing whatever comes to me. I have to keep chipping away, discarding and clearing and looking deeper. I am not just trying to reminisce; I am looking for the real world and my real self.

The root cause of all despondency is to identify the self with the body or the mind. Śrī Nārada Muni analyzed that Śrīla Vyāsadeva was not cheerful because of this mistake. So begins the Bhāgavatam chapter, Nārada’s Instructions on “Śrīmad–Bhāgavatam.”

I am trying to realize the purport of Vyāsadeva’s dilemma in my own life. Who am I and what do I need to find my happiness? I know that I must seek the answer in the self transcendentally situated beyond body and mind. To do that, I have to take help from my self-realized spiritual master.

Śrīla Vyāsadeva openly admits his deficiency. Unless we admit ours, how can we improve? Vyāsadeva said he was dissatisfied and felt a sense of incompleteness even though he had just spent a lifetime contributing his learning and compassion to humanity by compiling the Vedas, Vedānta-sūtras, and Mahābhārata. Vyāsadeva diagnosed himself thus: “This may be because I didn’t specifically point out the devotional service of the Lord, which is dear both to perfect beings and to the infallible Lord” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.4.31).

If only every troubled person in the world could see his defect so simply and clearly, and if only the world’s counselors, analysts, and trouble-shooters could see it too. Our normal happy situation is to be fully engaged in pure devotional service. Naturally we feel empty when we are not personally in contact with Kṛṣṇa, kṛṣṇa-kathā, and Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotees. This is what’s wrong in each and every case. We can start to see that by looking at ourselves.

Sometimes we publicly admit our deficiency, but then don’t do anything to rectify it. I need to improve the quality of my chanting, hearing, remembering and serving Śrī Kṛṣṇa (śravaṇaṁ-kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pada-sevanam). In Vyāsadeva’s case, he was deeply committed to religious vows and the study of scripture, and he was interested in helping others, but his noble activities had to be focused on devotional service to Kṛṣṇa in His original form to make him feel complete.

We may experience a little sat (sense of eternal transcendence) and some cit (knowledge of the difference between matter and spirit), but we may not taste ānanda-vigraha (the bliss of the self in loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead). To this I could add that we may be following the orders of a bona-fide spiritual master in disciplic succession from Śrī Nārada. If we don’t wholeheartedly apply ourselves to hearing the Śrīmad–Bhāgavatam, however, especially hearing about Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes in Vṛndāvana, if we don’t chant His name while thinking of His sweet pastimes, name, and form, if we don’t hear the Bhāgavatam attentively then we are going through the motions of bhakti while investing our vital energy elsewhere. How can that make us happy?

Unless we recognize what is wrong and are willing to correct ourselves, we will remain in that state. If I have to counsel others, I must at least know my own incompleteness and be working to gain full self-satisfaction. Without hesitation, I should also offer this advice to others: “Are you satisfied by identifying with the body and mind as objects of self-realization?”

Life is complicated, but Kṛṣṇa consciousness is simple. Others may think that kṛṣṇa-bhakti is impossible to follow, but it isn’t.

“Śrī Nārada said: You have not actually broadcast the sublime and spotless glories of the Personality of Godhead. That philosophy which does not satisfy the transcendental senses of the Lord is considered worthless” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.5.8).

This advice to all jīvas. I can’t help but think that many devotees are searching in the wrong direction when they seek to fulfill themselves without considering in a practical way whether what they are doing is satisfying to Kṛṣṇa.

Still, I have to start with myself. It takes more than obedience to God’s laws to go back to Goloka Vṛndāvana. If we are not feeling deep satisfaction (yenātmā suprasīdati), then we need “juicier” bhakti. We need to practice real bhakti and to give it to others.

From The Voices of Surrender and Other Poems

pp. 80-87

Irish Poem

Sanjaya dasa suggested:
Write about Ireland
mixing experience with
the Absolute Truth.
But what can I say?
I am a stranger here.

Daisies are tinier,
white petals, tinged with pink
yellow grosse bushes
everywhere you see
the brogue is vogue
only for tourists, Irish-Americans
returning to old sod
to see where their O’Sullivans
once died in a small stone house.
Now Guiness Stout,
Boom Town Rats lead
Dublin’s fair city
and today Belfast’s
shot-dead son has two
live brothers, both
joined the Hare Krsna movement.
That’s Patrick and Martin,
now Uddhava and Patri dasa.
Uddhava laughs when reporters ask
how he suffered in H-block cell,
happy now he’s sheltered
by Prabhupada.

Ireland’s transformed
as never before.
Although the land is ancient,
they never had the Vedas,
now she has new sons,
harer nama sankirtana,
on O’Connel Street, and a
Krsna conscious lecture
at Trinity College.

We have a farm in Glen Gariff,
have to give it a name.
What about calling it
Krsna-nagari?

I’ve come
as guru
beyond the modes of nature
history and culture
are only background
to our transcendental work.

In the North
where Uddhava comes from
we are popular;
on a wall with graffiti,
“Brits Quit” etc.,
there was, “Long Live Hare Krishna!”
We’re neither Catholic or Protestant
Irish or British
but we chant and dance in these bombed-out streets
and when we don’t go out they complain,
“Where were you?”
We get our best men from there.

Appeared on TV
with a priest, nun
and pretty presenter,
she introduced me
as one who gets the youths
that used to go to Mass.
Seans, Phillips, Patricks,
now Krsna’s devotees,
raw, happy, a little fallen,
but eager, led by one of Prabhupada’s
ISKCON lieutenants from Germany.

ii

“We don’t want to hear
just about you.
What about the view
from your room’?”
Mist on mountain top.
“And what is the difference
between the Irish
and English trees?”
The Irish
are light green,
the European are dull.

Poets of Ireland and England,
why do you dwell on earth and body and vague thought? Even your best verbal contraptions
are decorations of a dead body.
When you’re dead
you take the next life
which you doubt.
You don’t know
you don’t praise Krsna
your religion at best
is to speak honest and sincere
but that’s not enough.

“Many times,” wrote William Butler Yeats,
“man lives and dies …
and ancient Ireland knew it all.”
But all they knew
was a faint idea, concocted,
and when Saint Patrick arrived
transmigration was hidden.
Only now does Ireland know
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
thanks to Srila Prabhupada.

Land of meat-eating religion,
pub-drinking clergy
I don’t want to criticize.
I’m here to initiate
Prabhupada’s men
and speak the truth,
behave myself properly.
But when I heard
what the Pope ate and drank
on his Aer Lingus flight from Rome
—beef, eel, salmon, lobster
(toss ’em alive in boiling water)
washed down with two glasses
of Mercot wine, Irish Coffee—
and said to the stewardess, round-eyed,
“This was fit for a team!”
—then I knew for sure
it can’t be topmost.

Prthu dasa said he believed
the appearance of the Virgin
at Knock, why not?

At least we uphold
the divine appearance of the Lord.
There is a verse that sums it up:
“The Lord appears through
lower systems of worship
according to one’s desires,
although He appears as the demigods
and not in His original form.
What is the use of these other forms?
May the original Supreme Personality of Godhead
please fulfill my desires.”

iii

North and South and Southwest Cork,
throughout this little Isle
the sankirtana is going forth.
It won’t be long now
before Radha, the loveliest colleen
joins Krsna the Supreme Godhead
and blesses the mountains of Caha.

Since television
even the villagers
are going degraded
with media’s immorality
from illicit Dublin and New York,
and Kali-yuga is daily expanding.
Still, Lord Caitanya’s mercy
can save this misty, greeny place
where millions have suffered
for thousands of years.
But it’s up to us
to climb the ladder
taking Erin with us
to Krsna’s place.

Time poem

Now in each moment the future is die-cast.
But I feel as I grow old it becomes too late
to change or say any longer For Sure that I am Right.
All I can say is I am committed in a certain direction
and the die is cast.
I am trying to be a devotee and convinced that is right,
but I cannot say the quality of my devotion
and the decisions I make in surrendering to Krsna
are absolutely right.
What more can I do?
When day turns to twilight
I cannot say it should be daytime,
but must live with less time.
I wish I could change!

ii

We put the month and year on Back to Godhead
and with wristwatch keep the time:
mangala-arati early in the morning, then time
to chant, time to read Bhagavatam, time to write
time when a black cloud pushes into my head
with lusty thoughts and then goes away,
time for impulses of purity, desires to preach and surrender,
time when I go to speak,
riding in the car, talking to disciples,
time is passing, going down the hourglass,
sastra says the day passes and all that happens
is one loses another day of his duration,
except for the pure devotee.

iii

Time is the way you spend your life
time is the clock for the karmis
Time is the impersonal form of Krsna
time is running out for the earth
complete ruin and collapse of the nations
all buildings to dust unless
before relative time runs out
they change their karma.

iv

How much time?
Khatvanga asked.
The demigods said,
you have only a moment to live.
He dove to the earth where Krsna was
and bowed at His feet
made Bhagavatam prayers,
“I always think of You
I surrender everything to You
I honor the brahmanas.
You are the sum total and You are in all hearts,
You are the Supreme, please accept me
as Your most menial servant
and the servant of Your servants.”
The Lord accepted that prayer
and thus Khatvanga was saved.
I asked Prabhupada about that—
“How can we be mature—”
he cut me off and said, “Never think you are mature.
Think you are not mature and yet
you have very little time
at any moment you may die.
Death will come into the home
of even the multimillionaire
and say, ‘You stole so much oil which belonged to Krsna. Now you have to be punished.’ “

Don’t go the wrong way!
Chant Hare Krsna,
this is all that is needed,
and serving the great souls.
Your time is now saved,
it is all right,
now you can leave at any time,
the time of dark moon or full moon,
it doesn’t matter
everything is safe at guru’s feet
and even if you haven’t made a hundred percent
you can still continue
in the next life
pure devotional service.

<< Free Write Journal #384

Free Write Journal #386 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

The post Free Write Journal #385 appeared first on Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.

ANNOUNCEMENT

GN Press Needs / Services Available

We need to expand our team of proofreaders as we aim to increase the rate of republication of Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s books as well as new books that he writes.

This includes a need for fluent bilingual Spanish and English speakers to proofread Spanish translations (we currently have around 20 Spanish translations waiting to be proofread).

Anyone interested in this particular service should contact Manohara dāsa at mhd108layout@gmail.com

If you would like to help, please contact Kṛṣṇa-bhajana dāsa at onebigbookofmylife@gmail.com or Krsna-bhajana@gnpress.org and we will find you a service that utilizes your talents.

Japa Quotes from Day by Day: A Seven Day Japa Vrata (part 12)

April 19
12:02 A.M.

Your thumb is a little stiff from all the bead fingering. Woke during the night several times. Hope this day I’ll be able to chant my rounds with care and attention. You discovered you can chant faster, but it’s got to be done carefully, in order to pass the test.

******

Last night’s meeting went for over an hour. I began by playing a tape excerpt of Prabhupada saying Krsna consciousness can be executed by the tongue. “Chant Hare Krsna and when you get tired, take prasadam.” I said let’s go strong for the last two days of vrata. (We never made a formal vow, but we keep speaking of it as a vrata.) I said we want to say it’s great and wonderful on this vrata, but we may have gut reactions that we wish it were over. So be honest, but let’s not go downhill or peter out at the end. Keep up our expectations and give heart to it.

******

I ask the question, What would Srila Prabhupada say of our chanting sixty-four rounds in seclusion? I answer that he said more than sixteen minimum was good. Also we are taking a rare increase for only a week with hope it will improve the quality of our normal sixteen. And Srila Prabhupada said that our chanting should be with priti, with love, not mumbled inattentively.

******

I read from Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi 7, how Lord Caitanya followed the order of His spiritual master who called Him a fool and told Him to always chant the Hare Krsna mantra. I feel like a fool, don’t know anything, but I go on chanting with faith. Chant constantly was the order of Lord Caitanya’s guru, and it is an order given in an exemplary way—in other words, the bona fide spiritual master continues to give us that order. We can’t study Vedanta in this age (or go to raganuga), so let us chant constantly. By chanting you can see the lotus feet of the Lord and render Him direct service.

******

Madhu spoke how early in the morning he’s been offering prayers along with his japa, saying Siksastakam in between rounds and personal expressions like, “Please accept me.” He quoted statements about the mood of prayer. I thought that was a vital addition to my talk which focused more on mechanical aspects. (I’d spoken how I discovered I could chant much faster, save three minutes per round, if I whisper them audibly and breathe differently.) But he said after lunch he has no energy to pray. (I thought Krsna must be just as pleased with him even when he’s tired, as long as he uses his available energy in the service of the Lord.)

******

Manu read a prayer of Haridasa Thakura’s from Harinama Cintamani where he begs Lord Caitanya for the nectar of the holy name. Manu said he feels he is better able to control his mind this week, breaking habits of staying up late at night and instead telling his mind to go to sleep. He admitted he has been looking forward to the end of this week, but now he wants it to be good in the last two precious days.

******

Chanting and reading form the life of a devotee. Very nice to apply yourself to them. When you hear about Krsna, it’s bhagavata-dharma. And that’s all you need to know. Turn your attention to hearing about Krsna. Then you’ll preach. Or else how can you preach?

******

So men, so me
whatcha gonna do today?
We is gonna chant
Hare Krsna mantras all day
like a man working on
the dock all day off-loading
bananas.
(Beware the tarantula)
Yeah, me handled them
deftly and carefully,
under the eye of the foreman,
“Chant, chant” Day-oh!
Daylight come and me
wanna go home.

Harry Bellefonte sang but did he ever work like that? On stage with his shirt open the best good-looking guy, he worked the nightclubs, “Day-oh! Daylight come and me wanna go home”— back to Godhead.

We are not in that world. But we may learn from them rhythms and rhymes.

******

Our quest is good chanting. It’s the means and the end. It’s the medicine.
(Prasadam is the diet)
Even when it seems bitter to us jaundiced souls
let’s go on with it.

******

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna

you control the mind. Don’t let it control you. We look forward to many good times of elemental exercise in writing when Krsna consciousness will come to us naturally.

******

Morning Walk

April 19, 6 A.M., another day. This morning I deliberately indulged in feverish literary planmaking while chanting japa. I’m guilty of it. I saw it happening and I said, “Well, all right, let me do it, these ideas are coming, I need to write them down. I’ve been waiting for these ideas and now they’ve finally come for a next book. Anyway, this is service too, to Krsna.” Typical rationalizations that I make. So nevertheless, I’m going on with the sixty-four round vrata and I’m not so far behind schedule. But I just wanted to admit that here on the morning walk.

Excerpts From GN Press

From A Poor Man Reads the Bhagavatam, Vol. 1

pp. 344-50

ŚB 1.2.28-29

vāsudeva-parā vedā
vāsudeva-parā makhāḥ
vāsudeva-parā yogā
vāsudeva-parāḥ kriyāḥ

vāsudeva-paraṁ jñānaṁ
vāsudeva-paraṁ tapaḥ
vāsudeva-paro dharmo
vāsudeva-parā gatiḥ

In the revealed scriptures, the ultimate object of knowledge is Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead. The purpose of performing sacrifice is to please Him. Yoga is for realizing Him. All fruitive activities are ultimately rewarded by Him only. He is supreme knowledge, and all severe austerities are performed to know Him. Religion [dharma] is rendering loving service unto Him. He is the supreme goal of life.

Comment

The Bhagavatam begins with the invocation om namo bhagavate vasudevaya. As explained in the first purport, “Obeisances unto the Personality of Godhead, Vasudeva, directly indicate Lord Sri Krsna, who is the divine son of Vasudeva and Devaki.” The name of Vasudeva is now chanted in each of eight Sanskrit lines establishing that He, Lord Krsna, the son of Vasudeva, is the only object of worship. After these two verses, anyone who asks, “Who is God?” must either be slow or stubbornly rebellious.

Each line of the sloka focuses on a particular process for realization of the Absolute, and in each case, the goal is service to Lord Vasudeva. For example, vasudeva-para veda. This means that throughout all the Vedic literatures, there is only one objective described: establishing one’s relationship and ultimately reviving our lost loving service unto Him [Sri Krsna]. Some of the Vedas may teach this in an indirect way, but they are part of the comprehensive Vedic scheme to gradually elevate everyone to worship the Supreme Lord in the mode of pure goodness. Those who claim that the Vedas lack an overall purpose, as some Indologists do, have no insight into Vedic siddhanta. “The Vedas are to know Me,” Lord Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita, “and I am the knower and compiler of Vedanta.”

Similarly, the Vedic process of yajna or sacrifice is meant for realizing the truth about Vasudeva. Lord Visnu is sometimes called Yajna. All sacrifices are meant for His satisfaction. In the present age, there is little trace of bona fide yajnic ceremonies. Those who performed such sacrifices used to offer huge amounts of grains, ghee, and gold. The sacrifices were performed according to the exact science of chanting Vedic mantras. In the absence of wealth and brahminical expertise, however, the acaryas have recommended only Sri Krsna sankirtana-yajna for this age. “There is no other way, there is no other way, there is no other way in the age of Kali except to chant the holy names of the Lord.”

This verse also mentions yoga. Yoga is meant to help an aspirant contact the Supreme Lord. Asanas, meditation, and breath control performed separate from the desire to link with Krsna are just physical exercises. They calm the mind, but they have no essence. Those who are serious in their practices of mystic or astanga-yoga concentrate on the Paramatma form of Vasudeva. Prabhupada writes, “Paramatma realiza¬tion is but partial realization of Vasudeva, and if one is successful in that attempt, one realizes Vasudeva in full.”

Vasudeva-param-jnanam. The Bhagavad-gita analyzes the eighteen items useful in culturing knowledge. All of these culminate in devotional service to the Personality of Godhead, Krsna. “Culture of knowledge leading one to the transcendental plane of meeting Vasudeva is real knowledge.” This is also stated in the Bhagavad-gita where Krsna says bahunam janmanam ante, one may try to culture knowledge for many births, but only when he realizes vasudevah sarvam iti, that Vasudeva is everything, does he become a person of knowledge. If we accumulate knowledge at a university by studying in so many specialized departments, we don’t become knowledgeable. We may learn how to run machines or how to think astutely on subtle subjects, but we won’t gain liberation. If we don’t know how to do that—if we prolong our miserable lives in this material world—then all we know is nescience.

This doesn’t mean, however, that worldly and academic knowledge cannot be used in Krsna’s service. Prabhupada sometimes compares material knowledge to a string of zeros. If we put the one, Krsna, in front of all the zeros, then two zeros become 100 and three zeros become 1,000. That kind of knowledge leads the way to spiritual understanding. Therefore, science, psychology, and the arts can contribute to the sankirtana movement when utilized by a pure devotee.

“Tapasya means voluntary acceptance of bodily pains to achieve some higher end of life.” Prabhupada does not count the pains a demon may take to gain power as tapasya. Real austerity is to accept bodily inconvenience for the sake of knowing Vasudeva.

The meaning of religion has already been discussed in the Bhagavatam, and Prabhupada has offered many insights about the words “dharma” and “occupational duty.” Prabhupada has defined dharma as the unavoidable, constitutional nature of every living being. Our dharma is to render service to someone; in the highest sense, this “someone” means Krsna. Therefore, vasudeva-paro dharma.

All jivas are in the same predicament. We are pure souls outfitted in material bodies due to the misuse of our free will. The embodied jiva’s true purpose in life is to become free from this awkward combination of the temporary body and the eternal self. The conditioned soul is forced to act under God’s laws for the material energy. These laws are just suitable to govern prisoners. A person in this world, therefore, has to show Krsna his reformed state by sincerity if he wants to be released from the material energy and allowed to re-enter his original spiritual nature.

From Shack Notes: Moments While at a Writing Retreat

Preface

Shack Notes is almost undefinable, at least in the sense of examining a particular book’s genre. It is autobiographical, yet is it not an autobiography; it is diary, and yet it is not a collection of diary entries; it is self-exploration, yet it is done in the context of seeing the external world. Shack Notes is special. To write Shack Notes, I have deliberately slowed down my outer experiences in order to think out Krsna consciousness on the page. It is an attempt to explore the writing as Krsna conscious experience in itself. I have attempted to push it to the limits in hopes that writing would bring me deeper into my personal Krsna consciousness. It is also an inside look at a writer’s thinking.

The discovery of Shack Notes came from the ac-tual process of writing it, and thus it would be fitting to cull from the book some of the definitions of the work as they came to me.

“This is a book about writing in devotional service. I like to think of it as a book for writers, helping them through the process of writing and recognizing the challenges writers face. Those who are not writers can apply these principles to their own attempts in devotional service.”

“This book describes three weeks of my life. There is something very wonderful in trying to let go, in trying to quiet myself so Krsna can come forward. I am not saying it so clearly, but I think you know what I mean. I have allowed myself to become congested in spirit, insipid, and afraid over the years. To acknowledge that and let those parts of myself go is a blessing.”

“Shack Notes means spending three weeks in a wholehearted attempt to live entirely occupied by writing. The writing is centered on repeated attempts to evoke Krsna consciousness. Each attempt must start from scratch. I accumulate markings, some direct hits, sometimes a feeling of going nowhere . . . but gradually, I am gathering a growing conviction that writing itself is bhajana.”

“I love to write. That is why I keep doing it. It is awkward, tainted, flawed, I know: but it is love, and a love that helps others. I can learn to sing better, to compose more expertly.”

“This has been my aspiration in writing Shack Notes, that I can honestly translate physical and mental experience into Krsna conscious action, and that I can delve into my own inner meanings. I can only pray to Krsna to help me, and pray also that the experience of writing Shack Notes will become a meaningful spiritual journey.”

Shack Notes was born out of my having time between the writing of other books. It started out as writing practice, something personal just for myself, an experiment. As I gradually freed myself up and allowed myself to flow with the writing, I managed to accumulate a lengthy manuscript. Then material was selected from it and edited into its present form (what is presented here is only sixty percent of the total writing). I hope my readers will flow with me through this adventure in writing, and that they will find something useful in these pages.

Week One

June 1, 1991
6:30 A.M.

The routine of the writing retreat is quiet and protected. I can’t complain. If anything, there is so much comfort that I may lack a certain struggle, a sense of hunger. My disciples pamper me. Despite the comforts, I don’t indulge in sense gratification. I follow a simple routine: I don’t overeat, I get up very early, I don’t mix with women. O Krsna, I desire to serve You by writing.

This Moment:

A, plane overhead. Hunger in this guy’s belly. At last, he harkens again to the voice within, looks at his watch—can’t you even go for thirty minutes?

In between writing projects. I don’t know what form to submit to.

Robins and a wood thrush. I saw a fox yesterday, watched him unobserved. Big pink flowers blossoming on a tree, just brushing the screen of this outdoor shack in my host’s backyard.

Trucks are moaning on the highway. Tires are rushing by outside the boundary of the forest. Route 80, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

On the walk this morning, I thought of a few disciples who don’t write to me anymore. One tried hard to live in ISKCON temples, and he sent his child to gurukula. Somehow it didn’t work out for him, and now I hear he has moved back to his native country, has a full-time job in the city, and not much Krsna conscious practice. It’s not his fault, but it is unfortunate.

I thought of him, and I wondered how to help. By keeping in touch I can remind him of the importance of spiritual life. Now I hear from another disciple that she is hanging in there with her sadhana. She has an extremely heavy workload—a medical internship. She chants “car japa,” and she plays Krsna conscious tapes when she’s home relaxing as background sound. (“Better than spooky sound,” she says.) I encouraged her. What else could I do? Should I tell her not to be a doctor, that she should live in a temple? It’s not easy to advise people like that. There is no single solution for everybody’s problems.

I just try to encourage them.

Anyway, let me stay present with whatever comes up. Hear the robins and the traffic, and keep reading the mail.

`Yesterday I completed a major work (sorry if that sounds puffed-up), Prabhupada Meditations, Volume 3. Now I am jobless, seeking employment.

The present moment is an arc of time. It is not just 6:58 A.M., July 1, 1991, but an arc (like a rainbow) stretching from birth to death. I am in the home stretch—harvest time—last years with full facility for health and concentrated work. It’s now or never. That’s the present.

Shack notes, like former Gita-nagari “creekside notes,” are tangible. They are what I have now. The past is gone; it can never be recaptured. Don’t falsify it or try to relive it just to create writing.

The present: Lord Nrsimha’s photo on the cover of my diary. I am trying not to be anxious about not being employed in a writing project. I am employed in writing practice.

From Pada-yatra

pp. 85-88

3:45 P.M., Uddhava’s backyard hut

Some literary talk. I have Broken Vessels, by Andre Dubus, with foreword by Tobias Wolff. In his foreword, Wolff describes the nature of the autobiographical essay. He says he was curious to read Dubus’ essays because he himself has been grappling with the difficulties of writing short stories, which he describes as “years of working behind a mask.” He writes:

Of course, the confessional, ‘genuine’ persona is also a construct of the imagination—every coherent persona is—but it will inevitably take on a different voice and presence than the one we inhabit while telling stories.

The personal essay is different; it demands that we jump in with both our feet, yelling for all we are worth. It doesn’t reward authorial discretion, self-effacement, the arts that conceal art. Nor does it reward any of the civic virtues: tact; polish; reasonableness; noble, throat-catching sentiment; correct posture. There are, to be sure, many such writers, and they do very well for themselves, but I have to say they make me see red. I want to reach in and shake them by the jowls until their wisdom and smoothness and certainty crack wide open.

All this parading on the high road has nothing to do with the real possibility of the personal essay, which is to catch oneself in the act of being human. That means a willingness to surrender for a time our pose of unshakable rectitude, and to admit that we are, despite our best intentions, subject to all manner of doubt and weakness and foolish wanting. It requires self-awareness without self-importance, moral rigor without priggishness, and the courage to hang it all on the line. It’s a hard thing to do, and this is exactly what Andre Dubus has done here.

Certainly Dubus has written wonderfully and has led a courageous life—he was a Marine, then later, while helping people in a car accident, was hit by a car and crippled for life—but what I am looking for something neither Wolff nor Dubus display or even mention. I am looking for more jumping in with both feet and yelling, more being human, not only in the subject matter, but in the very way we write our sentences. These essays are carefully written and polished. If you’re going to hang it all out on the line, why not do it in the writing itself in the prose, in the actual sentences (or lack of them)?

Walking again. First raindrops.

Let’s hear from someone else. Someone is teaching how to live in community. Let’s listen. He says the same things I would say, and refers his audience to Srila Prabhupada’s purports and teachings. Same conclusion too.

Oh, now he is saying something more personal. He’s describing his own vision and drawing from Srila Prabhupada’s letters for support. His final punch line? We should live in this particular way, in this particular community, and pay our dues. We should follow his vision and do what he says. We should learn to love one another in the way he suggests. There is no other way.

Gulp. Where did you say the back door was? I’m starting to feel one of my headaches coming on.

There, I’m out. I am walking the few hundred yards back to the hut where I am staying. Breathe deeply at the diaphragm level. Fill your lungs with air. Relax. Like those tapes: imagine you are lying on a beach. Now sigh as you breathe out. Warm and heavy. Warm and heavy.

Time to answer the mail.

You want an accurate picture of the walk? How many are on it? Is it just me?

It’s hard to say. In a personal essay you jump in with both feet and give a genuine persona, but I prefer to sometimes play. That’s how I amuse myself because this is such a long hike and I become exhausted. So sometimes the pada-yatra swells to thirty or forty people and they hold a bhakti clinic.

Even as we’re walking, a man with a megaphone is giving us the anatomy of a japa round. It’s too complex for me. I would rather struggle with the actual round. What can he possibly do to help? Let him take care of his own chanting and be quiet.

In Russian they still use both a formal and an informal pronoun for “you.” The translator asked me, “In passages where you, Satsvarupa, are addressing your guru, you use the informal you, but should we change it to ‘thou’ in the Russian?”

I don’t know. We addressed him too informally? But that’s all we knew. We never said “thou” to Swamiji and he accepted us as we were while simultaneously beating us into shape. We allowed him to mold us.

As time passed, he became more stern, but still he was loving. It seems that the more stern he got, the more adept we became at hiding in the big institution. Oh, we knew we couldn’t hide from Krsna, and we couldn’t really hide from Prabhupada, especially not an old student like me. Therefore, I spent my time trying to catch his attention with some service he liked while harboring a secret desire to write creatively. I even began a fictionalized autobiography at the end of 1976 when I was in the guest room in the Amsterdam temple. I never showed it to anyone though. It was too contrived.

If Prabhupada were physically present now and I went to see him in Bhuvanesvara, and if he asked me what I was doing, I would try to explain free-writing.

But maybe that’s not my duty. How I write is my own burden. He would be more interested in the preaching results.

Lord Caitanya converted the Pathana soldiers. One of them was the king’s son. He became a strong devotee and famous in all the holy places. The Lord gave them all spiritual names. Srila Prabhupada says this is proof that mlecchas can become Vaisnavas and become spiritualized. Whoever criticizes this process is a fool, even if he calls himself jagad-guru.

The two Bengali devotees were trembling to see the soldiers. They were not as brave as the Rajaputa Krsnadasa or the Sanodiya brahmana. That’s all right. I’m like those Bengalis. I tremble whenever I’m in the hands of soldiers or the police. The main thing is never to give up the Lord’s service.

The Lord assured the soldiers that the Bengalis were His associates and that they had not plundered Him. He said He had a disease that resembled epilepsy. Actually, every time He thought of Krsna He experienced such intense ecstasy that He needed these men to protect Him.

“What ordinary living being can describe the pastimes of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu? I’ve only indicated the general direction in the form of codes. The pastimes and methods of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are uncommon. Unfortunate is he who cannot believe even after hearing all these things. From beginning to end the pastimes of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are uncommon. Just hear them with faith and accept them as true and correct. Whoever argues about this is a great fool. He intentionally and personally brings a thunderbolt down upon his head. The pastimes of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are an ocean of nectar. Even a drop of this ocean can inundate the whole world with transcendental bliss.” (Cc. Madhya 18.224-28)

From Meditations and Poems

pp. 20-24

Walk the Bhakti-marga

Choose the words. Or they choose you. Butterfly bush, carnation, thyme, sweet marjoram, cotton, lavender – a yellow pom-pom. You know the carnation, often seen on garlands, but it’s actually a plant that grows in the earth. Thyme, delicate little stems and leaves, tiny blossoms. The bay tree is a nice, waxy green, simple oblong leaves. These are the closest to this bench. A path of sunlight on yonder, low hill. The hill divided by borders of bush. A farm machine running unseen. I hear some children’s voices. Odd how crotchety I’ve become seeking silence. Noticing the sounds. Wind in leaves is pleasing. The tractor noise disturbs your hearing of the soothing wind in the trees.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna. Crunch, crunch on the gravel path then up a step and I’m on the boards, planks and they have a bounce sound to them as my boot heel strikes them. And the sounds of the maha-mantra coming out of me. Once in a while I notice it. A big fly or bee (sound alike) speeds by.

I was reading a recommended book on the human shadow by Robert Bly. Work with the hidden, dark part of yourself. I can’t understand it much. They might say I neglect it to my peril. But I can’t follow so many paths. I’ll trust that if I trod the bhakti-marga it will include work on my shadow if that’s something I need to do. I want to make progress toward going back to Godhead. That’s the finished product. If I’m unfinished, undeveloped in other ways it doesn’t make much difference. You have to leave it behind anyway. It disappears, useless. Of course, unfinished karma you come back for. But if you become a complete person yet lack devotion to Krishna, your development is like husking the paddy after the rice is removed.

—EJW 31: All You Need Is Krishna Part One, pp. 236–37

Mixing and Improvising

Improvising? Yes, within yourself you let go to express. But I thought cela was no add or subtract from guru. You need to go to him and ask, “Now that I’m older, what do you think?” I have this conception of a mix of art and smart, of conditioning self and absolute. You see, all devotees are actually like that in consciousness, so I’m thinking to give it in a new way, rendering this as service, will you accept it? I can’t directly ask him but do it and get the answer – go ahead but at your peril. Peril? Pearls of wisdom this way and give the man I am. So, be a good fellow and you won’t find fault.

I do with the others, but their actual fault is no excuse for me to do whatever I like. I need to be a devotee who pleases others, preaches. I feel as long as I can preach and get some results, Srila Prabhupada will be pleased. He was, and is, a dynamic leader. If there are musicians, et cetera, for Krishna, why not poet-of-the-flow? The actual self trying to improve… In a warm room…

If I’m really serious about mixing and improvising, then it’s inevitable that my letter exchanges will also appear in EJW, although in a disguised form (to protect the innocent). Life and writing are not exactly the same thing but they mix. They interact.

This morning it was raining lightly when I started out and then started to rain heavier. Lots of circles of raindrops in the already deep puddles on the road. The creek was so noisy, but I almost paid it no attention as I went by. You can’t see that far. Can’t even see your own thoughts?

What do you mean by the mix? I mean, just go ahead and dedicate yourself more and more to allowing as much of life as possible to appear in writing. And yet at the same time, make an art of it. And all of it offered at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada and his movement. It can be done. So, don’t hold back.

—EJW 31: All You Need Is Krishna Part Two, 29–30

A Dull Grief

Hare Krishna, you better get your quota in, the hour is getting late. Nice sunny day, wind rustling the August trees and I’m pain-free. Of course, I’m a spirit soul and so always pain free, but I don’t know that. I live in conditioned consciousness. I have forgotten my relationship with Krishna and trying to revive it. Read out loud and recording Sri Hamsaduta with Madhu. Radha’s suffering in separation as related to Lalita is completely beyond my experience. It seems strange to remain “pain-free” and sit listening or reading in an easy chair about Her extreme despair. She’s kept alive only by one friend, Her hope that Krishna may return.

Hearing of Her serves to underscore the separation that we do know. We have a dull separation of the conditioned soul. Our grief is covered over. We don’t want to discover it. We want to be happy in relative forgetfulness of Krishna. But that’s not possible. One has to go through the intense feelings of love in separation especially if one wants to follow Krishna in the mood of the gopis.

Remembering Srila Prabhupada also requires feelings of separation. So, I think it will be good for me to hear repeatedly this very sad tale by Lalita to Krishna. It may open up the actual feelings of separation. I will grow in worshipful respect for what Sri Radha goes through, even if I can’t understand it.

—EJW 31: All You Need Is Krishna Part Two, pp. 169–70

From Memory in the Service of Krsna

pp. 19-25

tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair
ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti
mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam

Deluded 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. At one point I fancied that I was again a very little boy and my mother was putting her fingers to her lips saying, “Shhh” softly, indicating that if we were very quiet, something wonderful would be revealed to us. In my graveyard attempt I said that word “Shhh” whenever a perception of the world came to my mind. 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 told myself I had achieved the Superego. So I walked home, carrying my umbrella in starry-eyed revelation.

The next day when I returned to my ordinary self, I thought that I had eaten “manna,” the food of heaven. I considered that I had become a liberated person. I imagined I was like a middle-eastern sultan who had nothing to do but enjoy himself in fabulously rich leisure. Since I had gone beyond every-thing in this world, now each moment would be eternally liberated. But what should I do now that I was liberated? I still had my ordinary material body, still lived in my room in my parents’ house, still had no job, and was still seen by everyone as a whimsical person who didn’t know what to do with his life. I didn’t seem liberated to others, and how could I tell them of my experience? At best I could only confide in a few friends and tell them of my latest trip, which was probably no more spectacular than their own psychedelic journeys. 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.

God’s personal features bewilder us. When we see a picture of Krsna we think He is an Indian legend or an anthropomorphic god. This is because we think of God while we are still under the influence of passion and ignorance. At best, if we attain the mode of goodness, we meditate on the impersonal spirit (Brahman). As Prabhupada writes, “When even those who are in goodness cannot understand, what hope is there for those in passion and ignorance?”

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.

Therefore it is really a simple act, to hear about Krsna. But it is rare that we come in contact with a person who has this knowledge, and rare that we reach the stage where we are willing and ready to hear. But once this miracle occurs, once a submissive, inquiring person meets up with an authorized representative of the Absolute Truth, it is not difficult. 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 hear-ing and practice. Yet from the very beginning we can understand that Krsna consciousness is durable and will not dissipate overnight.

In transcendence, we are not at a loss what to do. This was expressed by Sanatana Gosvami to Lord Caitanya. When the Lord said to Sanatana, “You are actually liberated,” Sanatana replied, “If I am liberated, then what is my duty?” By faithful hearing we receive transcendental orders to perform sadhana-bhakti, and that includes the order to preach this message to those who remain caught in the material modes of nature.

From Beginning at 26 Second Avenue

pp. 3-15

Offering Obeisances to the Spiritual Master

A devotional picture: me looking at Srila Prabhupada. I was surprised when I drew it because I saw myself suddenly fifty-five years old—wearing glasses, my lips sunken, wrinkles—sitting in front of Prabhupada. I was only thirty-seven when he left. He has never seen me in this older body. Therefore, I was surprised when this drawing manifested itself. It made me realize how drawings can create their own life, a new possibility in my relationship with Prabhupada.

In this painting, Prabhupada looks like a murti, his skin golden. He’s not looking at me. He seems absorbed in his kirtana. Or perhaps he is looking past me at the assembly of devotees. That’s the freedom of artwork, that you can place yourself right in front of your gurudeva, intent on getting his mercy, looking up to him with worshipful eyes, trying to penetrate his solemnity, his peace, and become absorbed in it.

I superimposed this drawing over Prabhupada’s pranama-mantras because that’s how I worship Prabhupada. I have placed this painting first because my love for Prabhupada is the beginning and essence of my spiritual life. Devotees sometimes ask why I put so much of myself in my writing (and drawing). What can I say? I exist. Prabhupada told me that the feeling that “I am something” is not wrong. I simply have to understand who I actually am. Then he taught me that I was Krsna’s eternal servant. Although I exist in a false conception, I exist in a real conception too. Here I have portrayed myself wearing tilaka, growing old, still trying to respond to Prabhupada’s drawing me to him. Submission to Prabhupada is not a manifestation of false ego, but of Prabhupada’s mercy. Therefore, this is not a drawing of my false ego, but of a person about to serve, who first comes before his spiritual master to beg permission and acceptance. Besides that, Prabhupada liked to see me. He liked to see all his disciples. He didn’t think we were ugly because he could see past the body to the soul. He was interested not in our expertise, but in our hearts. I offer this little book as service to him.

India’s Message of Peace and Goodwill

This is my rendition of the cover of a pamphlet Prabhupada brought with him to America. He intended it as both an advertisement and a preaching tool.

Prabhupada used his passport photo on the cover. That photo used to frighten me. He didn’t seem particularly friendly in the photo, but grave, like no one I knew.

Prabhupada didn’t seem masculine or feminine to me. He had attributes of both somehow. His beauty was not of this world.

In those days, I was still bound by style. Swamiji didn’t conform to style, not even to “swami” style. He was from another frame of reference completely. The other swamis we knew had long beards and magnetic smiles. Prabhupada’s gravity was impenetrable. It was clear that he had access to things incomprehensible to us. He could introduce us to Krsna’s world, to “India’s message of peace and goodwill.

My drawing doesn’t show all that—it’s more like a postage stamp version of the original—but you get the idea.

With the Swami in the Temple

The ecstatic chanters with Swamiji in this painting come partly from my imagination and partly from typical characters of those times. Hayagriva has his beard and saffron dhoti, and it’s likely that the guy with the glasses who is studying Prabhupada is on drugs. Swamiji surrounded by wild Americans. At least there’s a good kirtana going on. The painting is crude because the people were crude. Prabhupada refined us little by little.

Whenever I draw Swamiji, I’m pleased to remember the simplicity and innocence of those days. Would I like to go back to those days? Perhaps I am holding onto some romantic conception of myself and my relationship with Prabhupada. I had so many material desires then. I must be in better shape now. But those days were full of freshness of hope and faith.

I wouldn’t really want to go back, at least not as I am now. That gives this art-remembrance a right to exist. Although it doesn’t exactly bring us back, it evokes the Krsna conscious spirit we had in 1966. Krsna consciousness in New York City. I was there! Swamiji was there! It happened, by Krsna’s grace.

Looks like Kirtanananda there—solemn, dark face, a happy face. We were each absorbed in our own fantasies. Swamiji told us, “Get up and dance.”

I call this painting “With the Swami in the Temple” because that’s where I want to be, at least in spirit. The spirit of 26 Second Avenue was summed up by Prabhupada: “These boys, you will see that they are practically thinking of Krsua twenty-four hours a day. We have so many engagements. We have manufactured engagements. Someone is typing, someone is editing, someone is writing, someone is distributing or dispatching, someone is cooking.” I don’t know whether we really can ever go back, but ultimately, that “going back” means returning to the spiritual world. That is the meaning of 26 Second Avenue.

Japa Lesson

Swamiji used to sit with us in the morning and say, “Chant one round.” Then he would give us a japa lesson.

We didn’t have beadbags in those days, and when we chanted together, Swamiji took his beads out of his bag and held them in his hands. We hung our beads around our necks as we chanted. We wore them out on the street too. Those red beads became the mark of the Hare Krsna chanters.

In his lectures he implored the audience to chant. He promised peace and prosperity, and he assured us it didn’t cost anything. He begged us to chant the holy name because Krsna is nondifferent from His name. He told us we could chant anywhere—in the factory, in the subway, in hell. How could we have chanted without Swamiji’s japa lessons? He was happy to give them to us. More than anything, he wanted us to chant. This is how he hoped to satisfy his guru and all the acaryas. It had to start with us practicing sadhana.

This is what it was like to be with him. This is an off-moment in a sense, and that’s why I wanted to paint it. He wasn’t lecturing. He was simply sitting with us, leaning over his table and allowing us to approach him to learn the art of chanting.

<< Free Write Journal #383

Free Write Journal #385 >>

Viraha Bhavan Journal

Viraha Bhavan Journal (2017–2018) was written by Satsvarūpa Mahārāja following a brief hiatus in writing activity, and was originally intended to be volume 1 in a series of published journals. However, following its completion and publication, Mahārāja again stopped writing books, subsequently focusing only on what became his current online journal, which began in August of 2018.

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The Mystical Firehouse

At first, I took it hard that I would have to live surrounded by the firemen, and without my own solitude. After all, for decades I had lived in my own house with my own books and my own friends. I was also now a crippled person who couldn’t walk, living among men who did active duties. But when Baladeva explained it to me, how it was not so bad living continually with other firemen and living in the firehouse with its limited facilities, I came to partially accept it and to accept the other men. I came to accept my new situation. I would live continually in the firehouse and mostly not go outside. I would not lead such a solitary life but associate with the other firemen.

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Writing Sessions on the Final Frontier

Let me write sweet prose.
Let me write not for my own benefit
but for the pleasure of Their Lordships.
Let me please Kṛṣṇa,
that’s my only wish.
May Kṛṣṇa be pleased with me,
that’s my only hope and desire.
May Kṛṣṇa give me His blessings:
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he
Rāma Rāghava Rāma Rāghava
Rāma Rāghava rakṣa mām.

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Obstacles on the Path of Devotional Service

You mentioned that your pathway has become filled with stumbling blocks, but there are no stumbling blocks. I can kick out all those stumbling blocks immediately, provided you accept my guidance. With one stroke of my kick, I can kick out all stumbling blocks. —Letter by Śrīla Prabhupāda, December 9, 1972.

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Writing Sessions in the Wilderness of Old Age

The Writing Sessions are my heart and soul. I’m trying my best to keep up with them. I am working with a few devotees, and they are far ahead of me. I wander in the wilderness of old age. I make my Writing Sessions as best I can. Every day I try to come up with a new subject. Today I am thinking of my parents. But I don’t think of them deeply. They are long gone from my life. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a poem when he was a sannyāsī, and he said now all my friends and relatives are gone. They are just a list of names now. I am like that too. I am a sannyāsī with a few friends. I love the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I try to keep up with them. I read as much as I can and then listen to his bhajanas.

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In Search of the Grand Metaphor

The metaphor is song. Explain it. Yes, particulars may not seem interesting or profound to readers who want structured books.
Wait a minute. Don’t pander to readers or concepts of Art. But Kṛṣṇa conscious criteria are important and must be followed. So, if your little splayed-out life-thoughts are all Kṛṣṇa conscious, then it’s no problem.

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Writing Sessions in the Depths of Winter

I am near the end of my days. But I do like the company of like-minded souls, especially those who are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Yes! I am prone to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I have been a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda for maybe almost sixty years. Sometimes I fail him. But I always bounce back and fall at his feet. It is a terrible thing that I sometimes do not have the highest love for him. It is a terrible thing. Actually, however, I never fall away from him. He always comes and catches me and brings me back to his loving arms.

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Upsate: Room to Write: May 21–May 29, 1996

This edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Upstate: Room to Write, 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.

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Guru Reform Notebook

A factual record of the reform and change in ISKCON guru system of mid ’80s.

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June Bug

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

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The Writer of Pieces

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.

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The Waves of Time

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.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda Revival: The Journals of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami (Volume Two)

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.

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Life with the Perfect master: A Personal Servant’s Account

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.

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Best Use of a Bad Bargain

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.

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He Lives Forever

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.

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The Nimai Series: Single Volume Edition

A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.

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Prabhupada Appreciation

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.

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100 Prabhupada Poems

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,

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Essays Volume 1: A Handbook for 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.

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Essays Volume 2: Notes From the Editor: Back to Godhead 1978–1989

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.

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Essays Volume 3: Lessons from the Road

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.

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The Journals of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Volume 1: Worshiping with the Pen

“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.”

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The Best I Could Do

I 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.

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Songs of a Hare Krishna Man

It’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.

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Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and Prayers

O 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.

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Here is Srila Prabhupada

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.

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Geaglum Free Write

This 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.

Read more »

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