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Monday Morning Greetings 2017 #41 – The Meandering Snail

October 9th, 2017

The Appalachian Trail is the longest hiking trail in the world. It extends 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, and is also certainly one of the most serene and secluded. Those fortunate and brave enough to challenge the length of that path often choose an apt pseudonym for their brief encounter with the occasional pilgrim on a similar journey, usually passing them on the opposite way. My friend, Gita Nagari Dasa, has chosen the “Meandering Snail” on his epic journey. Yes, he is quite slow, having collapsed one morning over twelve years ago on his tenth vraja-maṇḍala parikramā only to find himself paralyzed from the waist down. Rushed to the hospital the next day and diagnosed for an emergency operation, he was told before going under the knife that he may never walk again. Fortunately, he awoke with a slight tingle in his toes and after excruciating physical rehabilitation for eight months progressed to a gimpy walk. His internal vow was to walk the Appalachian Trail, a lifelong ideal that was never really so much on the table in his over thirty years in Krishna consciousness, including the rigors of family life in America, and an arduous renounced life after the age of forty-five living in India. He is now living that dream, having left India after an expired visa. I am fortunate to be among a few selected readers for his occasional journal entries written quickly from a public library in one of the out of the way town stops on the trail needed for refueling supplies. The insights of one who really takes fully to the traditional sādhu life of forest walking, austerity, and chanting Hare Krishna all day can be quite inspiring and humbling. Let me share with you an excerpt from the last journal entry of the “Meandering Snail”. I think you will see what I mean.

 

 

This week I have passed the thousand-mile mark!!!! I started this hike in Duncannon, Pennsylvania at mile marker 1,147.7 on April 4th 2017. It is now almost 6 months later and I have managed to meander myself down to mile marker 109.3!!!! I have “only” 109 miles left to hike and I will have done the entire southern half of the Appalachian Trail. I am now only about 20 miles from the Georgia state border, the last state I have to pass through and then and there in that state I will finishing my hike (Krishna willing) on the top of Springer Mountain in the Amicalola State Park.

And—-oh—-what a journey it has been. Deep, exquisite, profound, austere, wonderful, enlivening, frustrating, tiring (but never boring), physically challenging (sometimes beyond my ability to handle) and, without doubt, full, absolutely chock full, of the mercy of Krishna. Every step has been just dripping with Krishna’s mercy, because at every step along this 1000 some mile journey, I have been chanting incessantly this mantra:

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

And that has made all the difference in the world, and that my dear friends, when all is said and done, that is all that we really need.

JNANYAM ASTI TULITAM CA TULAYAM
PREMA NAIVA TULITAM TU TULAYAM
SIDDHA EVA TULITATRA TULAYAM
KRISHNA NAMA TULITAM NA TULAYAM

“The opulence of Vedic knowledge, and the perfection of the mystic yoga system, these two things can be compared to one another, and they can be compared to other things in this material world. But Krishna Prema, love for Lord Krishna, and Krishna Nama, the chanting of the holy name of Lord Krishna, these two things have no comparison to anything in the entire material universe. They can never be weighed on the scale of mundane consideration!!!!!”

So, as I walk down the trail, I have been thinking a lot these days about ecstasy. Do you remember when we first joined the Hare Krishna movement, we really joined not because of the philosophy, or even the prasadam (even though both those things helped a lot), but we really joined because by following just a little bit of the Krishna conscious teachings, we had an experience of ecstasy in relationship to Krishna?????? Do you remember that my friends?????? That experience of ecstasy that propelled you into the Krishna conscious movement????? Because I do, I remember it all the time, and I long for it in my heart all the time. And I have been thinking a lot these days about ecstasy, and have been searching for that ecstasy, and I am just so hungry for it, I cannot tell you how hungry that hunger is. And, oh, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is when that natural hunger is met by the perfect source of pleasure —–our great all enjoying, ever attractive Lord, our Sri Krishna!!!!

And you know what????? I have come to realize that there is nothing wrong with that. That we are eternally “ananda moya bhyasat”, we are eternally pleasure seeking by our very nature. And Krishna is naturally also “ananda  moya bhyasat”, He is always eternally full of blissful pleasure by His very nature. And what a perfect combination that is —–Him and us. It is not the seeking of pleasure that is bad—— for seeking it we will do by our very constitutional nature——— it is how you seek it that matters. Are you going to seek it in matter, in the material nature ——-or are you going to seek it in spirit.

So as I come to the end of this hike, I just want to encourage all of my friends to not give up on their ecstasy. I just want all of you to follow your ecstasy in Krishna consciousness to the utmost culmination. Do not look right or left, do not listen to those who will crash or come down on you in your pursuit of ecstasy. Just follow it and follow it with all your heart, all your will, and all the intelligence at your command. And Krishna ——HE WILL RESPOND. Do not worry about that, He has to respond.  Because why???? Because Krishna is an ecstasy hound just like us, and he cannot say no to Srimati Radhika, He is bound by Her, and ecstasy is Her property. So where there is bhakti, where there is Bhakti Devi, Srimate Radhika, then Krishna will not be far behind.

So do not worry about anything else, just constantly chant the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, where Radha’s name is invoked eight times, following all the rules and regulations, and Krishna will eventually show up. It is that easy my friends, in this age of Kali Yuga it really is that easy——it is really, really, really that easy—–surprisingly!!!!!!

So, I am now walking through the Nantahala National Forest. And right now it is late at night and I am tired, so I will leave it here. Follow your ecstasy in Krishna Consciousness, give up trying to find ecstasy in matter, and then stand back and watch what happens!!!!! The opulence of Vedic knowledge

I wish this upon you all.

Hare Krishna, my dear friends, pray for this poor soul.

Gita Nagari Dasa

 

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