Waves of Devotion

Dhanurdhara Swami October 25th, 2021

Home at Last![1]

October 6, 2000
Vrindavan

I left the arrival gate only to be greeted by a mob of drivers on either side of the exit pathway waving a myriad of signs searching for their pick-up. I wasn’t sure if the message announcing my arrival had reached Vrindavan. I searched for my name. What a relief to spot the smiling face of Gopal, our Brijabasi driver!

All my arrivals into Vrindavan are similar: the feeling of unworthiness, the grime of my long journey representing the contamination of a prolonged stay in America, the instant relief of a yamunā-snāna (bath), and the happiness of seeing my old Brijabasi friends.

As I was returning from the Yamunā, Dadu, the old ISKCON mailman, passed me in a rikshaw, but he didn’t see me. He was wearing a yellow marigold garland from the temple Deities wrapped twice around his head like a crown, a sort of transcendental Statue of Liberty. I see many people in America trying to standout by what they wear, but mostly it’s superficial, just based on the latest fashion. Dadu, however, seems truly himself. What he wears thus reflects his inner self, not Madison Avenue.[2]

The water at Keśī Ghat was deep and flowing swiftly. It was five o’clock and the sun was beginning to set in the west, sending a reflection of yellow light through its waters like a pathway cutting diagonally to the base of the ghat where I was sitting. I entered carefully into her waters and facing that shimmering golden pathway, I reflected on the unparalleled natural beauty of Vraja. After chanting my gāyatrī I waded like a child in her soothing waters.

After five minutes, Ramesh, the rickshaw driver who took me to Keśī Ghat, calmly pointed twenty feet to my left to the last step of the ghat. A large snake sat there with a fish in its mouth. I don’t know how to describe my reaction other than I tried to stay cool, but really couldn’t. Quickly placing my hands two feet above me on the steps I swiftly kicked my right foot up onto the first step of the ghat and vaulted myself out of the water or, I should say, tried to vault myself out of the water. I floundered and fell back in. I finally made it out and quickly moved up a few steps to where I had placed my things. As I looked to my right, about ten feet on the other side of the snake, I saw a sādhu calmly washing his lota. He was smiling and gesturing to me. He was laughing and flapping his right hand, which obviously represented to him my panic in getting out of the water. He laughed and laughed.

The Brijabasi childen, who were the only other people there and who had been sporting blissfully in the Yamunā when I arrived, were also amused, their cunning smiles and laughter representing the anxiety and carefree hearts of young, simple, Brijabasi children. Home at last!

[1] I arrived in Vrindavan last Wednesday. I thought it most practical and relevant to just post the first journal entry I ever wrote, which was about entering Vrindavan. Of note is that Gopal, my Brijabasi driver, was there this year again to pick me up, as has been the custom for almost forty years. I left Vrindavan last year on March 6, 2020, so this was the longest I have been out of Vrindavan since I arrived in May of 1976. My arrival a few days ago thus marks the forty-seventh year that I have had the fortune of touching this holy land. I love every minute of it. I suppose future entries will reflect that. As the above post was written twenty years ago, and hopefully my writing has improved, I took the liberty to slightly re-write it.

[2] A street in New York City that was the center of the advertising and public relations industries that has become a euphemism for their attitudes, methods, practices.

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Dhanurdhara Swami October 18th, 2021

Chanting and Shelter

In the last few years, the world seems to be increasingly and rapidly moving beyond our control, causing duality and fear. Chanting, however, is an activity that I like and can do regardless of how the world moves around me. That’s my shelter—the only shelter—the holy name.

Chanting and Taste

Krishna is the taste of water. That divinity, however, can only be realized when water is unmixed with anything else, in other words, sweet. Similarly, devotion is the taste of the soul, which can be realized when devotion is not mixed with activities that have no value to devotion. Therefore ruci, the stage of true taste in devotion, manifests after the platform of niṣṭha, the stage of steady devotion. I thus pray to remain fixed and have taste for the holy name.

Chanting and Sādhu-saṅga

I received a voice message from a close god-brother. He spoke with conviction of Sri Radha and her mood of separation from Krishna. I began to hanker for Vrindavan. The depth and conviction of my japa increased. Bhakti moves forward by sādhu-saṅga, the association of advanced devotees.

Chanting and a Life of Devotion

When a drop of taste comes in the chanting of the holy name, I ardently pray not to lose it. But prayer is not enough. I must live a life of devotion.

Chanting and Realizing Our Relationship with Krishna

When will we be qualified to realize our eternal relationship with Krishna? When that objective becomes a “dire necessity”. In other words, understanding that one does not realize one’s relationship with God, one begins to want that more than anything else. Such deep feelings of Inadequacy and dependence foster utter humility, which is the beginning of spontaneous devotion. I desire to have that desire.

Chanting and Humility

One can be naturally humble or become humbled or causelessly gifted a moment of humility. Either way, humility is the substance of sincere prayer.

Chanting and the Helpless Heart

My mind was clear. I began to search for the helpless heart, where I can stand at the threshold of devotion and beg for mercy.

Chanting and the Killer of Meditation

“When will I be finished?” That killer of meditation, which shortens our focus on the eternal present and thrusts us into the oppression of time, suddenly arose in my consciousness. Neglect that thought and renew one’s effort to be present with even one mantra and escape the oppression of time.

The Significance of Chanting

The holy name is the Supreme Absolute incarnate in sound. Think how significant that is and how grateful we should be, and in a humble mood chant the holy name.

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Dhanurdhara Swami October 11th, 2021

That was a term my mother used to describe me after asking me for the fifth time in a day if I had done my daily chore of taking out the garbage. What a rascal I was! But besides that obvious fact, I am bringing this up to illustrate a point based on a recent experience and consequent epiphany: just how much a sense experience, especially hearing, requires more than just the senses alone for us to be aware of that experience, and how important it is for a spiritual practitioner to realize this. In that regard, I want to concentrate on elucidating this point in reference to mantra meditation, to show that besides requiring the stimulation of the auditory sense to hear a mantra, just how much one also requires the proper attitude and concentration. Before expanding this point further, let me first share the impetus for writing this article.

I started to listen to readings of the Krishna Book when I lie down to sleep at night. To make sure that I hear clearly, I even use AirPods. I soon, however, fall asleep, only to wake up after some time. Today I was shocked that even though several chapters had been read, I was so deeply asleep that I didn’t have any sense that the recording had been on. A question immediately arose in my mind: although the vibration of the reading was certainly in my ear, did I truly hear those chapters or not? If the answer is no, and it certainly seems the case, it demonstrates that the full awareness of a sense experience requires, in addition to the stimulation of the sense of hearing, the focus of the mind towards the sense that has been stimulated.

This relationship between focus and awareness is an essential point for the foundation of any practice, especially meditation, because without the steady focus on a single object over a prolonged period, one’s awareness of that object does not take place and our meditation, which is based on awareness of the object of meditation, will bear little fruit. That’s why the Yoga Sutras specifically defines the practice of meditation in relation to four characteristics of focus: concentration itself, doing such focus without interruption, maintaining that concentration for a prolonged period, and meditating with an attitude that inspires focus.[1]

The necessity of focusing the mind for sense perception to take place is also precisely why the classic yogic texts on meditation recommend asana to make the body suhka (peaceful) and sthira (steady). When the mind becomes too focused on the body it can’t simultaneously concentrate on the object of meditation.

Gauging the effectiveness of meditation based on absorption is also specifically why bhakti-yoga is deemed in the Bhagavad-gītā as the topmost yoga.[2] Focus on an object is most pronounced when a person has an emotional connection with it, and therefore bhakti-yoga, which is based on the most consummate or absorbing emotion, love or devotion towards God, facilitates the deepest meditation.

Dwelling on these thoughts this week inspired me to put renewed attention to support my meditation in the following ways.

1. Even more strictly designating a time and place for reading and chanting. If we don’t reserve an exclusive time and place for God, our spiritual activities will be in competition with things that we may superficially be more attracted to.
2. Complete technological fast from late afternoon to after breakfast. Meditation requires reversing the flow of the consciousness from external objects towards the inner mind. If technology is on, whether we succumb to it or not, the option of using it will always push the flow of the mind outward.
3. Setting an intention before a devotional practice to remind me to remain focused and to not follow extraneous thoughts. We need to set intentions or vows to help the mind resist the waves of frivolous thoughts.

I was “mother deaf” when I was young, and I now pray to not be “Krishna deaf” when old.

[1] Yoga Sutras 1.13-14

[2] Bhagavad-gītā 6.47

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Dhanurdhara Swami October 4th, 2021

My friend Satyahari dasa, one of the first disciples of Yogi Bhajan and later initiated into Gaudiya Vaisnavism, shared with me a statement from one of his teachers that I think is relevant to what I want to write about today: “When you translate words from Sanskrit to another language, they become impregnated with the history of their usage in that language.” At the time, he was referring to the translation of the Sanskirt word śaraṇāgati into “surrender”, which in English carries a meaning of force and oppression that is foreign to the usage of the word in Sanskrit, which means to take shelter (śaraṇa + āgati — “going (lit. coming) for shelter”). In other words, surrender in this sense is the loving submission to or the taking of shelter of one who provides refuge, and not a forced capitulation to an authority that has either no concern for you or intends to exploit you. I wanted to clarify this point before sharing a personal realization I had about surrender so that there would be no ambiguity in what I am trying to express. My personal experience:

Due to the COVID restrictions, I have been unable to return to Vrindavana for almost two years. This morning especially, I began to deeply hanker to return. What I realized, however, was that what is separating me from the holy dhāma more than anything else is not the COVID restrictions of the Indian government, but my consciousness and level of surrender. Being locked down during the pandemic, I had felt the necessity and had the time to study the pandemic more deeply. At the same time, I wanted to understand more clearly the political forces that were degrading society, especially in the USA. To cut to the chase, I realized that although such knowledge may be required to help one negotiate the world, at my age, in my ashram, and with my present spiritual aspirations, it was best to just shut off that internet spigot to the world. In other words, I felt to do this was God’s will, and thus I needed to surrender in this way to deepen my consciousness and qualify for Vrindavana.

This exercise furthered my realization of how surrender (śaraṇāgati) is always the door to bhakti and how we must seriously contemplate this in taking our next step forward on the path of devotion. The challenge is that although we are often called to take shelter of God’s will, and although His direction, whether from guru, śāstra, or the Lord in the heart, is always His blessing, we may mistakenly conflate such surrender with the impregnated negative conception of its English usage because taking shelter of God sometimes requires sacrifice. This attitude may be even further exacerbated because of the increasingly bad experiences people have with authority growing up in a postmodern world.

So, what does this type of surrender look like? On the most basic level, it is manifest in a person of character, who lives his life according to principles, rather than impulse. It is seen in loving relationships where the parent or friend sees the needs and desires of a child or friend before themselves. Ultimately, it is the pure devotee of Krishna intoxicated with Love of God, whose single desire is to surrender to and serve the desires of the divine couple.

In his book The Art of Loving, Eric Fromm defines narcissism as seeing the world according to one’s desires and defines love as the opposite. Surrender (śaraṇāgati) is thus the foundation of the art of loving, for, in essence, it is complete sacrifice for the pleasure of God, which opens one’s heart to serve and wish the best for all. Thinking about my own challenges to move forward on the path of devotion, it couldn’t be clearer that we all need to walk through that door, but first we must get it out of our mind that surrender is a dirty word.

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Dhanurdhara Swami September 27th, 2021

I have almost completed six years of faithfully putting out Monday Morning Greetings without fail. I will happily continue that service, but now if something comes up that makes it difficult to complete the weekly post, rather than do a marathon to finish it, I will just draw from what I wrote six years ago, confident that it will still seem fresh to my reader. That certainly won’t happen often. I just enjoy the challenge of writing a weekly post based on a new thought or realization. Well, here is one posting from five years ago:

The Four Pillars of Peaceful Life

There are four foundations of life that a traditional society automatically provides its community so that people can focus on spiritual life and not preoccupy their minds with worry. They form the basis of a peaceful life.

1. Where one will live
2. Whom one will marry
3. What one’s occupation will be
4. Who one’s guru is

I will discuss each individually, but first I ask you to reflect. Are these things settled in your life? If not, how much time and mental energy do you spend to fulfill the ones not settled? If they are fulfilled, how much struggle did you face to achieve that? And finally, if they have been provided, how grateful are you to the culture and people who have facilitated that?

Where you are going to live:

Tejiyas dasa, a close godbrother of mine, whom Srila Prabhupada asked to start the kisān (farm) movement and who seems to know as much about economics as anyone, once shared with me an insight gleaned from his study of real economics (sustainable living). He told me that just by being born, living, and dying in the same place, at least 90 percent of one’s economic and social problems are solved. Without elaborating more deeply, just starting life without a mortgage by being gifted a residence by your parents (the traditional system), having a lifelong community support program, and being assured protection and care in old age (and innumerable other advantages), one is gifted a substantial financial, social, and emotional advantage in life. Life’s natural struggles are difficult enough without having to find out where home is. You are lucky if you have never had to negotiate the problem of where you should live.

Whom you are going to marry:

I listened to a thought-provoking talk by Professor Barry Schwartz called “The Paradox of Choice.” Professor Schwartz showed that although modern life offers us more choices, decisions are increasingly more difficult to make, because we are constantly agonizing over which choice gives us the most enjoyment.

What caught my attention most was Schwartz’s statement from personal experience that every five years, he gives 25 percent less homework to his students, because the students have become increasingly preoccupied with thinking about, maintaining, and finding a boyfriend or girlfriend. There is so much mental energy that goes into such endeavors when there is not a system and culture in society to fulfill the most fundamental need for a lifelong partner. A culture that facilitates finding a suitable partner at an early age is, although not perfect, still a blessing. How fortunate not to have to waste our mental energy in such endeavors!

What your occupation will be:

One of the most important aspects of life is finding an occupation that not only reciprocates our economic needs but is also fulfilling. Again without going into the details, varṇāśrama (the social/economic system of ancient India) provided full employment to it citizens, with training and work according to one’s qualification. Work that both reasonably reciprocates one’s needs for maintenance and is suitable to one’s psychophysical nature can be one’s joy in life, not just a chore. Such work also facilitates one’s spiritual life, which often entails some tapasyā, discipline, as after work one can enter one’s practices with a peaceful mind. Oppressive work demanding long hours and travel and less-than-ideal work conditions exhausts one. When one returns home from such a job, the last thing one has energy for is the discipline of spiritual practice. Rather, for relief, one gravitates to the couch, the TV, and, often, a beer. One is fortunate to find one’s occupational calling. Tradition, especially varṇāśrama, did a much better job of doing that.

Who your guru is:

There is an old Indian saying: Don’t go to a village that doesn’t have a river, a doctor, or a brāhmaṇa (spiritual teacher). Previously, most villages and towns in India had bona fide teachers from authentic spiritual lines who were thoroughly trained. Today, even if one transcends the propaganda of mass media that increasing material life is one’s goal, it is still difficult to find a bona fide teacher, and even if one does find one and has minimal self-discipline, there are still so many cheaters in the name of spirituality. To find one’s path and teacher is the greatest fortune.

What if I don’t have a spouse or a job or have not found my place? Of course, ultimately, whatever God sends or doesn’t send our way is meant to bring us closer to Him. Krishna has a unique way to bring each of us closer to Him. We should have full faith in that. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for a stable life. Just as it is one’s duty to try to both maintain one’s health and to see disease that comes one’s way as God’s mercy, one must reasonably endeavor to stabilize one’s life and at the same time accept one’s lot in life.

We sometimes dismiss traditional society when we feel that its principles are not intelligently applied, but we should never lose sight of its wisdom. They offer the basic foundations for a peaceful life. We should understand their value and appreciate the culture that provides them.

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Dhanurdhara Swami September 20th, 2021

Thinking about happiness again. Isn’t that what’s on most people’s minds? For me, at least today, I thought about it more in terms of a philosophical inquiry than as a personal issue. And the first thing about the subject that strongly came to my mind is that happiness ultimately comes down to consciousness. That thought inspired me to write about happiness in terms of consciousness under the heading “It’s the Consciousness, Stupid”. It’s a good title, because although it should be obvious that happiness ultimately resides in the mind, we repeatedly hanker and search for more stuff in the pursuit of fulfillment, including position and prestige. I will begin by writing two entries on this subject today, beginning with the incident that inspired me to write about this in the first place.

Theodicy and It’s the Consciousness, Stupid

The thirty-year-old son of someone I knew in India died unexpectedly. The father was heartbroken, but due to his stature in learning he could still be reasonably philosophical. After pouring his heart out about the death of his son and the pain that he and the child’s mother felt, he shared the following verse:

“No one knows, O Lord, what is the intention behind Your actions, which cause great confusion to mankind. We know You to hold no one in favor or disfavor, the appearance of partiality in You is a false belief of mankind.” (Bhag. 1.8.29)

Another friend reading his post texted me:

“This verse?
Intrigues me.
Your meditations on it?”

An edited transcription of my response:

This is the way I think we should meditate on it: I think the main difficulty in understanding tragedy in relation to God is that we tend to judge whether someone is merciful only in terms of the facility they give us to control and enjoy the world. Therefore, when the world moves against our control and consequent enjoyment, we tend to think that God, the controller of the world, is not merciful. I think the vantage point of the Absolute Truth is quite different. He doesn’t see mercy in terms of giving us power and more enjoyment, but in terms of positively changing our consciousness, which often requires circumstances that do not conform to our attachments and thus cause us to suffer. Karma, even when it is tragic, is still God’s mercy, because karma is the creation of circumstances, often very challenging, to teach us things that we were incapable of learning by just hearing philosophy or by getting good advice. Of course, such trying circumstances are often very difficult to understand, especially at the time they are happening. If, however, we live a life of dharma, we may be blessed with the vision to clearly see how everything that happened to us, especially our trials and tribulations, did in fact elevate our consciousness. If you still have a problem understanding that circumstances need to be challenging to change us, just meditate on someone you desperately want to change, or even someone you just can’t stand. Now, ponder what it would take to elevate that person’s consciousness to a state of contentment and complete selflessness. Would it be your words of wisdom or would God have to teach them some life lessons? Is it possible they would need some challenges or even trauma to make the seismic change in them that you perceive is needed? And while thinking about that we can also think what God would have to do to change us. I think you get the idea. So those are my thoughts.

Of course, these issues can go deeper and raise other questions, but I am convinced that if we ever hope to reconcile the tragedies in this world with the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being, we first need to shift our concept of seeing mercy from giving one the ability to control and enjoy to helping one elevate their consciousness.

Purpose in Life: It’s the Consciousness, Stupid

Another thought on consciousness: It is not stuff that gives meaning to life. This should be evident in the lives of the rich and famous, many of whom seem lost. Contrast that with the lives of the very simple and pious, many of whom have found deep meaning and purpose by living in a place where their simple contribution is valued by their family and community.

So, yes, it’s the consciousness stupid, and I still have to remind myself of that every day.

“…the most radical question which anyone can be asked is not how much their possessions cost, but whether they have found something of value – that is, something that makes living worthwhile.”

―Alister E. McGrath, Northern Irish theologian, scientist, and public intellectual

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Dhanurdhara Swami September 13th, 2021

Sri Radha Made Simple [1]

1. In this world everyone is seeking happiness, and that pleasure is ultimately found in love. If that is the guiding principle in this world, why should it not be part of its source, the ultimate reality?
2. If there is love in the spiritual realm, there also must be beauty, for love means to offer the best.
3. This correlation between happiness, love, and beauty is the key to understanding Sri Radha.
4. Sri Krishna is the Supreme Enjoyer. His happiness is therefore love and the personification of that love is Sri Radha, who must also be the reservoir of all beauty and good qualities, which are the concrete expression of love.
5. For example, flowers are a common way to express love. They are fragrant, colorful, and may be soft and smooth, but offering them in love is not just a sensual experience, for getting a gift of flowers and experiencing all its wonderful attributes is also the experience of love from the person who has offered those flowers.
6. Krishna’s pleasure potency is called hlādinī śakti, the essence of which is Krishna prema (love of Godhead), and when that love is heightened to the highest degree, it is called mahābhāva. Sri Radha is mahābhāva svarūpa, the form of the highest love (and pleasure).
7. Even Sri Radha’s many ornaments and decorations, which She adorns only for the pleasure of Krishna, are composed of and expressing mahābhāva. Thus Krishna’s experience of Sri Radha is the experience of His greatest love and pleasure.
8. As Sri Radha is an expression of God’s own potency of love, we cannot imagine the intensity and greatness of Her qualities. Although there is no limit to Her love and qualities, descriptions of them can give us some idea. For example, here is a description of Sri Radha’s beauty from Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi:

“The beauty of Śrī Radha’s smile defeats the beauty of a blue lotus. The beauty of Her face defeats the beauty of a forest of blue lotuses, and the luster of Her body puts gold in a painful situation.”

9. Only someone who is impersonal is not conquered by love. As Krishna is the Supreme Person, He is responsive to and con- quered by true devotion. As Sri Radha is the highest form of love, Her twenty-fifth transcendental quality is that She always keeps Krishna under her control.
10. How is this relevant to us? Srila Prabhupada instructs us:

“Rādhārāṇī, the symbol of the topmost bhakti, is so powerful that She has purchased Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, Vrajavāsīs take shelter of the lotus feet of Rādhārāṇī, for if She recommends, ‘O here is a nice devotee,’ Kṛṣṇa must accept Him.” (Teachings of Queen Kuntī)

[1] Today is Radhastami, the appearance day of Sri Radha. Every Radhastami I will reprint this article on Sri Radha.

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Dhanurdhara Swami September 6th, 2021

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a topic for this Monday Morning Greetings. When one finally did come to mind, and it came time to write something down, somehow nothing came to mind. This happened repeatedly. Only when my older brother Barry called with the news that my mother, already past her one-hundredth year, had passed away a few hours earlier, did I understand why. This Monday Morning Greetings was to be reserved in her honor. I always thought that when she passes away, I would just reprint my article “The Mother, The Mind and Food,” which glorifies motherhood. There was a problem with that. I just reprinted it a month ago in honor of her hundredth birthday. Fortunately, there is another story glorifying motherhood that just came to my mind. I pray that retelling it is relevant to honor her passing.

Over twenty-five years ago I lived in Vrindavan on the roof of a funky house on the other side of the backside wall of Bon Maharaja’s college, a large institution that was directly across from the ISKCON gurukula building. One evening as I was leaving my house to visit the Krishna-Balarama temple for ārati, I saw the great Odia Vaiṣṇava and scholar, Dr. Fakir Mohan, briskly walking by on the path. We had a relationship for many years, so I was eager to greet him and thus quickly caught up to him. Evidently, something was on his mind, because just after he smiled to acknowledge my greeting, he immediately sought my help: “Where is Bhakti Caitanya’s house? I heard Partha Sarathi Goswami is staying there.” Fakir Mohan Prabhu had this penchant to seek out and honor all Vaiṣṇavas, even those much junior to him like ISKCON gurus and sannyāsīs, so I directed him and accompanied him to Bhakti Caitanya’s house.

When we arrived, Partha Sarathi Maharaja immediately got down from his seat, paid his obeisances and offered Prabhu a seat opposite him. They chatted for a while, and then on Maharaja’s request, Prabhu began to sing “Mangala Gitam” with heart wrenching devotion, a favorite of his that expresses Śrī Radha’s feelings of separation when Śrī Krishna mounts Akrūra’s chariot to leave Vrindavan. I was expecting this wonderful exchange between these Vaiṣṇavas to continue, so I was a bit disappointed when Partha Sarathi Maharaja apologetically excused himself: “My mother, aunt, brother, and younger sister are visiting and staying next door in the MVT. I left home over twenty years ago, so my family is excited to spend time with me. I must take leave now. In fact, I am already a bit late.” Neither Maharaja nor I were expecting Prabhu’s response: “I will also come! I will also come!” The enthusiasm of his entreaty was quite compelling. We thus took off together to the MVT.

As we entered the apartment where his family was staying, Partha Sarathi Maharaja’s stately mother from Oxford, the wife of a retired Royal Air Force commandant, came out of her bedroom to greet us. However, before Partha Sarathi Maharaja could introduce us, Prabhu was already on the ground in deep meditation offering her his prostrated obeisances. When he finally began to slowly rise, Maharaja, almost embarrassed, began to introduce Prabhu so that she would not misunderstand the status of this elderly man at her feet. “This is Dr. Fakir Mohan Prabhu, the former chairman of the department of Sanskrit of Utkal University, a bhāva bhakta—a devotee of the highest devotion, a naishtika brahmacārī—a life-long celibate, and a sangeet acharya—a master of devotional music.” Dr. Fakir Mohan looked sheepishly at Maharaja’s family almost as to pardon himself, “Excuse me, but this is our culture.” He then immediately corrected himself, “No, we feel it!” He then began to quote from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam how when one becomes a pure devotee fourteen previous generations become liberated. He went on for some time supporting his deep reverence for Maharaja’s mother with unfailing logic and śāstra.

I can’t gauge the power of my own devotion to influence generations of my family, but I am confident that to whatever extent I have remained fixed in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s service, my mother, who selflessly sacrificed her life for my care, and whose deep affection for me continued until the end of her life, will certainly be the recipient of his mercy. I will end with just a few indications of that fact.

In our tradition, visiting the holy land of Vrindavan is indeed God’s grace. In 1982, my mother and father visited me in Vrindavan, a visit which changed their whole perspective on Krishna consciousness. I remember calling her the following year. When she asked where I was, and I informed her I was calling her from Vrindavan, the emotion of her reply struck me. With deep affection she inquired, “How is my Vrindavan?” And she continued from those days on to have unbounded respect and affection for the devotees of Krishna, who showered their affection on her.

I returned after one month from Colombia this Friday. The first chance I got to pay my mother a visit just happened to be Janmāṣṭamī, this past Monday. My mother has been confined to a reclining chair in her home with one assistant for several years, but especially the isolation of the first year of COVID had taken a toll on her physical and mental health. I was thus pleasantly surprised when I entered her room. She calmly turned her head, greeted me with a truly beatific smile, and informed me that she was very happy and had no complaints in life. When I left her room, I related to her caretaker and the devotees picking me up the same thing: “I have never in my life seen my mother so peaceful and vibrant. I think she will live many more years.” She passed from this world shortly after on Wednesday morning.

I am not so confident in my own devotion to elevate generations of my family, but I am confident that somehow Krishna blessed my mother for whatever service I have offered at the lotus feet of Śrīla Prabhupāda. To me that is the only explanation why I was fortunate to be directed to visit her on her last days in this world, and why inexplicably a deep inner peace entered her heart just before she left reflected in a beatific smile. I thus remember her in gratitude. May she rest in peace.

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Dhanurdhara Swami August 30th, 2021

Tomorrow is the birth anniversary of my beloved spiritual master, His Divine Grace Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In his honor, I will share a short realization I had recently about his glories, and after that I will present my yearly homage to his honor.

The Significance of Srila Prabhupada’s Last Written Words

Unfortunately, Srila Prabhupada’s infirmity had visibly taken its toll on him. Day and night, he lay prone on his bed, and with whatever energy he could muster left in his body, he tried to rest comfortably and focus on the kirtan that softly played non-stop in his room. It is beyond comprehension that anyone in such a condition could gather the energy and mental acuity to continue dictating a profound commentary on such deep textual work as the Srimad-Bhagavatam. But he did. During hours through the day, he would listened attentively to his Sanskrit pandit read the various commentaries on a particular verse, assimilate them within his mind, and then with great effort bring his voice to a whisper into a dictaphone held to the side of his mouth, which is about as loud as he could struggle to be audible. Despite the condition in which these purports were written, I am convinced they are among his best. When going over those commentaries again recently, what particularly struck me was the significance of his last written words. They seemed to sum up in many ways the spiritual practice he was leaving the world:

“Seeing the Lord before him, Brahma began to offer prayers with great humility, respect and attention” (Bhag. 10.13.64)

Spiritual practice means concentration or attention. On the path of bhakti, that practice is kirtan or prayers, which to be done feelingly must be chanted from a platform humility and with respect (offenselessly)

Am I reading too much into this? Anyway, in classical hermeneutics, and in writing in general, what is said last is always significant.  Srila Prabhupada said that his books were dictated in his heart by Krishna. If that is a fact, Krishna certainly dictated a perfect legacy to his teachings. Can there be anything more significant in our practice than prayers or kirtan done with great humility, respect, and attention?

Vyasa Puja Homage

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

All glories to Your Divine Grace. Please accept my humble obeisances.

In many of the places I visited when I preached in South India during the summer of 1978, the people recognized us and proclaimed, “Yes, we have heard your Acyutananda Swami!”  I was impressed, not so much by how prominent Acyutananda had become by speaking their local language and singing their traditional songs, but by what that indicated about Your Divine Grace. It showed me the depth of your humility and devotion, for although you had every right to brand the movement with your name, you never did. Instead, you made it about Krishna and were thus more than happy to empower your disciples, who also brought Krishna to the forefront. As far as I know, no leader of any other Eastern religious or spiritual implant in the West could make the claim that their movement was about God more than about himself.

Today, in my homage to you, I would like to do something different. Although usually the plethora of your observable qualities are highlighted—as they should be—I would like to glorify you for what was not visible, which in a way says as much about your purity and devotion as anything else.

Let me start by further elucidating what my experience in South India revealed. You never promoted yourself, and thus we never saw in you even a whiff of the desire for pratistha (distinction) or puja (worship).

Your life was an open book, and although so many young ladies took shelter at your feet, no one ever saw you deal inappropriately, even subtly, with the opposite sex. In contrast, so many other Eastern gurus that came to the West—even those with high yogic accomplishments—fell prey to sex desire. That no one ever saw in you what seemed to plague everyone else, to one degree or another, showed us the glory of your clean heart.

By your mercy, the worship of Radha-Krishna was spread all over the world. In such an endeavor, it can be tempting to focus on the intimate side of the topic in a display of devotion meant to attract followers, even though most people today would likely misunderstand. Your preaching, however, though certainly deep, devotional, and comprehensive, was always careful, appropriately measured in terms of your audience. That you kept reserved the deeper internal side of your specific relationship with Krishna was also your glory.

There is no doubt that you had every talent needed to spread the teachings of bhakti around the world, or that your selflessness and devotion were self-effulgent. What is just as spectacular to me, however, is that you were always surrendered to the will of Krishna, down to both the simplest things you did and the unwanted things you avoided. It may not always have been flashy, but by your chastity to Krishna’s will, we were spared from seeing any ambition, lust, or pretension. I am honored that in this world of cheats and showmen, I have a spiritual master who, imbued with pure devotion, always remained beyond suspicion. I can only pray for your mercy that I can also always remain unseen in the same way.

Humbly in your service,

Dhanurdhara Swami

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Dhanurdhara Swami August 23rd, 2021

Questions like this are challenging, for a theist naturally believes both in God and our free will to choose God. The problem is that if God knows past, present, and future then what we choose in the future is already known. But, if our choices are known, and thus apparently predetermined, then how do we have the free will to choose? To me the question comes in a certain genre of inquiries that to answer require an understanding that God has inconceivable potency and is therefore not restricted by the binary choices in this world governed by His own laws. That fundamental principle rests at the foundation of Upanishadic philosophy:

“The Supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything.” (Iso. 2)

I thought of a simple example to demonstrate that the metaphysical realm operates under a will that is beyond set laws, one that we can’t logically quantify. Let’s look at the origin of reality. There are basically two choices: either reality began at a particular time, and there was nothing before that, or reality has no beginning. Do we have the capacity to conceive that no matter how far back we go, reality can always go further back ad infinitum, or that there was nothing and then there was something? Of course, theists believe that reality, or God, has no beginning, but the point here is that one way or another the ultimate reality must be inconceivable, because the mutually exclusive alternatives of its origins are both beyond our experience of how things operate under the physical laws of this world.

Another puzzling feature of the ultimate reality that is relevant to our inquiry is that it is not subject to the authority of time. Of course, that is inconceivable to us in a world where time is absolute. But if the ultimate reality, or God, is subjected to time, then He is no longer absolute. In other words, if you believe in God, time is relative.

Now, based on our preliminary discussion, let’s tackle our original inquiry—“If Krishna knows what we will do in the future, does that mean we don’t have free will?” If we bear in mind our discussion above, then the root of the quandary created by the seeming contradiction between an omniscient God and free will is a problem we created ourselves by the false assumption that God must function under the same laws that rule this world. In other words, it is reasonable to assume that God, having inconceivable powers and being beyond time, can know everything, even the future, and still allow the living being to have full choice. If we deny that possibility, then we are embracing the untenable position that God lacks inconceivable potency.

I like how Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura dealt with a similar type of inquiry as we are discussing here, but in relation to the oft asked question concerning the origin of the conditioned soul in this world. He questioned the validity of even answering a question of “when” when it refers to an “event” that ultimately cannot be traced in mundane time by replying, “You can’t understand such things by the dirt of words.”[1]

Of course, words have meaning. This itself is hopefully a reasonable discussion through words, but if we are talking about quantifying the ultimately reality through words when it comes to expressing how transcendence intersects with the mundane, they will certainly fall short, as they will when we try to logically conceive how God knows the future and grants us free will at the same time.

Can God do everything? Yes. Then can he make a stone so heavy that he can’t lift it? Yes, and then he will lift it. (A classic theistic answer to the Omnipotence Paradox that Śrīla Prabhupāda also used when confronted with this very same question.)

[1] I couldn’t find the exact reference in Jaiva Dharma. If anyone does find it, please send it to me. If any correction is needed, I will make it. I did find a statement similar in Chapter fifteen and will share a short excerpt here: “Our words always have some māyika defects. My dear son, you should always endeavor to realize the pure truths. Logic and arguments cannot help at all in this regard, so it is futile to use them to try to understand inconceivable subject matters. (Jaiva Dharma, Chapter 15)

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