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Archive for the 'Monday Morning Greetings' Category

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #15 – An Original Argument for the Existence of God

April 11th, 2022

Please excuse me again for a reprint. I was working on a post about a difficult doctrinal issue and it has been taking be an inordinate amount of time to finish. I’ll be back next week with a fresh post.

 

An Original Argument for the Existence of God

June 13, 2016

I am fascinated by apologetics, the discipline of defending the existence of God through reason. I have listened to and read the best apologetics, from William Lane Craig to Alvin Plantinga, and I have studied their arguments carefully. I even devised a public seminar called “Can God Be Blue? A Study of Krishna” based on apologetics, including arguments for God being a person and for that person being Krishna.

 

I coined what I thought was an original argument for the existence of God. I call the argument “The Argument by Coincidence.”

 

Basically, I argued that if a person carefully studies his own life, he will find a synchronicity between certain events, or “meaningful coincidences,” as Carl Jung termed them, whose probability of occurrence is so small that it is far more likely that the cause of those events rests beyond any random occurrence under the laws of nature. What makes the events even more improbable is the link between those external events and our inner life, as if the events were personally directed toward helping us grow. An example from Jung’s practice illustrates this phenomenon:

 

A classic illustration of synchronicity presented by Jung involved one of his patients, a woman with a highly developed rational mind—a fact that made her psychoanalytic treatment difficult. One day she was telling Jung about a dream she had had in which she received a golden scarab, a beetle with significance in Egyptian mythology. Just at that moment, Jung reported, he heard a noise “like a gentle tapping” on his window. When he opened the window, a scarablike beetle flew in. Jung caught the beetle and presented it to his patient, saying, “Here’s your scarab.” The stunning impact of this synchronicity overwhelmed the defenses of her rational mind and led to a breakthrough in her treatment.[1]

 

Here is a similar example from my own life:

 

I met the devotees in 1970 while visiting California during the summer break after my second year in college. While we were in Los Angeles, my friend received an invitation card from the devotees chanting on Hollywood Boulevard for a Sunday Feast at their new temple on Watseka Avenue. Four of us went and very much enjoyed the feast and chanting. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we decided to chant nonstop on our drive the next day up Highway 1 to visit San Francisco. In San Francisco we specifically wanted to eat at one famous Chinese restaurant. When we finished, to our surprise, we saw the devotees chanting on the street right outside the restaurant. I immediately joined in, as I was already familiar with the chanting from our visit to the temple the Sunday before. When the chanting ended, we proceeded to find a place to stay by calling the various references and leads we had collected in our travels to the West Coast. The only person who was even the least bit accommodating was a young man who offered that we could sleep in our car in the parking lot of Kezar Stadium on the southeastern side of Golden Gate Park, smack in the middle of the city, and use the bathroom in his apartment across the street. When we drove into the empty parking lot, which we discovered was used only on Sundays for football games, we noticed that the back of the stores on Frederick Street faced us about twenty yards away. And when we looked up, we saw through a back window billowing smoke and robes. It was the Hare Krishnas working in their kitchen! I turned to my friend and said, “Holy cow, everyone in this city is into this!” We called out, “Hare Krishna!” Two devotees (Gaura Hari and Babhruvahan) leaned out the window at the beckoning four travelers and exclaimed, “Ah! Krishna has brought us four! Have some prasādam!” We were offered a tray of peanuts, raisins, and chickpeas, which we wolfed down with gusto. We stayed in that lot for the last two weeks of our summer break, visiting the temple daily and meeting many wonderful devotees such as Jayananda, Madhudvisa, and Locana dasa, to name just a few. The rest was history. We all became devotees.

 

Of course, not everyone in San Francisco was into this. That was the lone Hare Krishna temple in a city. I am not sure that what happened is exactly synchronicity, but the probability of this series of mutual coincidences—how I went to temple, met the devotees outside the restaurant, and was granted a place to stay outside the only Hare Krishna temple in a city of millions and then dedicated myself to that same path—was small enough to at least stretch the concept of godless randomness. If this was the only coincidence of my life, I could pawn it off as chance, but when I look at my life and see how the world has repeatedly moved to teach me needed lessons geared directly at the most subtle impurities in my heart, the sheer probability of such synchronicity is implausible.

 

It could be argued that I am just seeing in my apparent destiny things that don’t exist, that synchronicity is just in my mind. But besides the fact that synchronicity happens too often in the lives of too many people to be disregarded as chance, the fact that there is a moral force or destiny in every person’s life beyond randomness—which is called “the law of karma” and can be proven by the science of astrology—makes providence undeniable. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss it all in detail, but I am puzzled as to why no one has applied the scientific method to the study of astrology to prove that there is a destiny set at birth. It seems that it can easily be done.

 

In summary, the argument of coincidence states that the preponderance of the occurrence of mutual coincidences in people’s lives and the fact of destiny are so far beyond the explanation of chance that the only plausible explanation for them is God.

 


[1] Nancy Seifer, “Synchronicity and the Soul.” http://whenthesoulawakens.org/synchronicity-and-the-soul_288.html

 

 

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #14 – How a Bhaktivedanta Purport Saved Me from a Mental Hospital

April 4th, 2022

Dhanurdhara Swami has been hosting a retreat this past week in Shyam Ashram in Cali, Colombia and hasn’t been able to finish this week’s Monday Morning Greeting so we are reprinting one from 2016.

 

How a Bhaktivedanta Purport Saved Me from a Mental Hospital

October 24, 2016

 

I am fortunate to have had very wonderful parents. In fact, my ninety-six-year-old mother is still alive, and when I am in the US I try to stay with her for a couple of days every month. Why am I saying this? Because I am about to tell the story of when my parents had me kidnapped to save me from being a Hare Krishna, which they were convinced at the time was a cult, and I would not want anyone to think bad of them in the least. They were very decent people. They kidnapped me over forty years ago, when we young, passionate, dedicated devotees couldn’t always communicate properly the profound truths that we were experiencing, especially to our parents, and when most people, such as my parents, had very little frame of reference to understand an exotic new religious movement in America. Out of love for me, they tried to save me from something they thought was harmful, and unfortunately, not being properly informed, they resorted to deprogramming. Looking back, I blame myself equally for that miscommunication.

 

I am just going to highlight the part of the story where the recollection and sharing of a Bhaktivedanta purport saved me from being committed to Kings County Mental Hospital.

 

After being kidnapped from the temple in Dallas, Texas, by the famous deprogrammer Ted Patrick, I was eventually able to feign that he was successful in his attempt to deprogram me. I was thus sent home, but under the watch of his assistant, a thug named Goose.[1] When my father and Goose took me shopping to get new Western clothes at Kings Plaza, the largest shopping mall in Brooklyn at the time, I made a run for it when Goose went into a bank to change money. As I was running out of the mall with my father chasing me, the police nearby apprehended me, thinking I was a thief. When they asked my age and understood that I was twenty-four years old, they initially wanted to let me go free, but on my father’s insistence that I was crazy, they agreed to take me to a mental hospital to determine if I should be committed.

 

I was booked at the nearest police station, handcuffed, and taken to the mental hospital to be interviewed by a psychiatrist who would make the final decision on my mental status. My parents were interviewed first to register their complaint. I was left in the waiting hall outside his office. I paced back and forth among the other people there, chanting on my fingers (my beads had been taken). Many of them were also in the process of being committed. I remember one lady talking to the wall as if it were her boyfriend who had jilted her, and another man strapped to a wheelchair in a straitjacket screaming and kicking as violently and angrily as anyone I have ever seen.

 

The interview with my parents was soon finished and the psychiatrist called me in. I sat down directly opposite him, and he examined me carefully. He looked me in the eyes and asked in earnestness, “Are you hallucinating?”

 

“Why do you ask that?” I replied.

 

“I saw you pacing back and forth in the hallway, talking to yourself.”

 

I must have looked crazy, I thought. When I had returned home, I’d had no Western clothes, and my parents had confiscated my devotional attire. That’s why they had taken me shopping. All they had been able to find around the house were extremely baggy jeans (before they were in fashion), an old high-school sports-team jacket, and a strange fez that my father had been gifted by a Pakistani insurance salesman. To make my appearance even stranger, I had been pacing back and forth, shaking my head rapidly back and forth in ecstasy as I chanted the Hare Krishna mahā-mantra aloud, keeping track by counting on my fingers. I must have looked, well, crazy!

 

But somehow, in response to the psychiatrist, I had the gumption to look him right in the eye and with the Hare Krishna missionary zeal, enthusiasm, and confidence of those early days of the movement—“fired up” as we would say—repeat exactly what I had read the day before I was kidnapped in a purport from the Third Canto of the Bhāgavatam.

 

“Although I am not hallucinating,” I told him, “it can’t be said that I am seeing the same as you. Just like one who is not a theist sees a rose as separate from God and made only for his own enjoyment. A devotee, however, sees that flower as the energy of God and meant to be used in his service. And therefore, although I am not hallucinating, it cannot be said that I am seeing the same thing as you!” As I spoke those last words, I slowed down for emphasis and pointed my finger directly at the psychiatrist.

 

His jaw dropped, and he paused before gathering his words. “That’s very intelligent,” he finally said. “I think your parents are crazy!”

 

I could imagine the fervor with which my parents presented their case and the contrast between my lucid and clear explanation, practically word-for-word from Srila Prabhupada’s book.

 

The doctor released me. And that’s how Srila Prabhupada’s books saved me from being committed to a mental hospital.

 

Rathi Krishna recently found the exact purport that I had studied and repeated to the psychiatrist that one fateful morning forty-one years ago. I think the readership of Monday Morning Greetings will value its clarity and force. Even that psychiatrist, who probably wasn’t even a theist, appreciated its profundity at a time when the Krishna consciousness movement was not yet recognized as an established religion.

 

“A conditioned soul sees a very beautiful rose, and he thinks that the nice aromatic flower should be used for his own sense gratification. This is one kind of vision. A liberated soul, however, sees the same flower as a reflection of the Supreme Lord. He thinks, ‘This beautiful flower is made possible by the superior energy of the Supreme Lord; therefore it belongs to the Supreme Lord and should be utilized in His service.’ ” (Bhāgavatam 3.27.13, purport)

 

Epilogue: A few years after the kidnapping, my parents visited me in India and became very appreciative of what I was doing, as did the rest of my family.

 


[1] “Goose is big, about six-foot-five, and strong as iron. He wears his hair long, with a sweatband around it. His arms are tattooed, and when he goes out on a mission he wears heavy boots, a leather vest, and a black leather gloves like a strangler. I think all that is part of psyching himself up. At heart he’s really a gentle young man, but when he gets riled, he has known to become aggressive. That night he got carried away.”—from Ted Patrick’s book, Let Our Children Go!

 

Monday Morning Greetings #13 – The Perils of Faith

March 28th, 2022

To advance in learning, there is a necessity for faith. Unfortunately, there is also a danger in faith. In this post I want to discuss that danger and how to safeguard against being victimized by it, but first it is important to briefly discuss what faith is and why it is so important.

 

Faith is not blind. It is trust by experience. When, by following the guidance of someone who is expert in a particular field of knowledge, one realizes some truth, one naturally gains trust in their authority. That naturally leads to faith, the acceptance of that person’s authority in certain areas of knowledge beyond what one can personally verify. For example, if one’s health improves by the prescriptions of an expert doctor, one will trust that doctor’s authority and follow the health protocol he or she recommends, although one is not a medical authority nor able to confirm the legitimacy of that doctor’s recommendations.

 

The necessity of faith as a precursor to knowledge should be obvious. To learn something means going beyond one’s present perception and comprehension, an endeavor obviously requiring preliminary faith. If that is not there, then the effort to understand those truths would be lacking, and one would remain in ignorance of them. Now to the perils of faith—especially in the fields of transformational knowledge, such as psychology and spirituality.

 

Unfortunately, a person doesn’t have to be perfect in a field of psychological or spiritual expertise to give someone a preliminary experience of transformation and thus generate trust in their authority. And, if such an authority is motivated by personal gain, he can easily manipulate rather than enlighten those who trust him or her. I think the dangers of acceding that type of authority to another is obvious, and the history of such exploitation is common and quite documented. We are thus left with a dilemma.

 

On one hand, without faith in an accomplished teacher we are generally limited to the authority of our own opinions. On the other hand, if we get the wrong teacher, we get cheated. In that regard, here are some guidelines I wrote in terms of finding a proper spiritual authority, while at the same time safeguarding oneself against being exploited.

 

  1. Finding a conduit to spiritual knowledge begins with the sincere intention to want to be ruled by knowledge with the faith that God in the heart will respond to our honest entreaty by manifesting externally to us through a humble and learned guide.
  2. A teacher is one who was the faithful student of his teacher. A bona fide teacher should therefore be connected to a recognized lineage of teachers.
  3. The teacher’s legitimacy and one’s relationship with him or her must be tested over a reasonable period of time.
  4. A teacher’s duty is to clear the doubts of their student and therefore must be open to and able to answer all doubts.
  5. Whatever the teacher says must conform to the saintly people and sacred teachers in the tradition to which he or she belongs.
  6. A bona fide teacher is non-envious and non-possessive. If the student finds someone legitimate who inspires them, the teacher blesses the student to develop that connection.

 

The vehicle of bhakti moves forward on the tracks of faith. It is therefore so important to take refuge in those who know and embody truth. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam warns, however, that people today are so unlucky that even though they may have a strong desire for spiritual guidance, they can easily be misguided by people willing to exploit their faith for their own personal benefit. [1] Although we are doomed if as a result of this we become skeptical and faithless, still it is wise to be cautious of the perils of faith.

 


[1] See Bhag. 1.1.10 translation and commentary by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #12 – Thus Spoke Me

March 21st, 2022

In my years of teaching the path of bhakti, I have come up with a few hopefully quotable sayings that perhaps are worthy to share. Well, here they are:

 

Destiny is the language of God.

God as Viṣṇu, the all-pervading one, witnesses all our activities. He then manifests as kāla, or time, to move the world around us according to the ignorance He has observed in our past activities to teach us the relevant lessons required to rectify those misconceptions. One’s destiny or karma is thus one of the main ways God speaks to enlighten us. As we are generally ignorant of exactly what God is telling us by our karma, He provides a dictionary of archetype karmic experiences to decipher His karmic language called śāstra. Still, as that language may be foreign to us, He further provides for our edification a teacher who knows śāstra and is thus proficient in understanding destiny, the language of God.

 

Rationalization is intelligence in the service of the false ego.

More than anything else the false ego is the desire for superiority—more than even the desire for sensual stimulation, which is why even the wealthiest people with full opportunity for sense gratification often still vie for high political positions. One of the greatest affronts to this desire for superiority is the acknowledgement of having been wrong, something most of us resist by the mechanism of rationalization, where the intelligence is used in the service of the false ego by creatively making excuses even for the most blatant of our mistakes.

 

Krishna is God with His guard down.

Letting one’s guard down is an English idiom meaning to become less guarded about potential danger. In terms of personal relationships, to let one’s guard down has the sense of making oneself vulnerable by not hiding one’s intimate self. God, or anyone else in a position of superiority for that matter, naturally guards His full or intimate nature from those who are subordinate, whether that nature is as a friend or a lover, out of consideration for the dependent’s desire for a formal or reverent relationship. God’s fullest manifestation is Krishna, where He is akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti, the full embodiment of all intimate loving relationships. For those who have a more intimate relationship with Him, He thus sheds the guard of majesty and manifests His original form of a cowherd boy where He can reveal His intimate side. In other words, Krishna is God with His guard down.

 

Position covers personality. 

As mentioned above, the fullest manifestation of any person is not the height of their position, however great that may be, which in fact covers their fullest being as a lover, parent, or friend. Therefore, for God to fully manifest Himself in His original form as Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He does not overtly display Himself as the Supreme Controller, for position covers personality.

 

Happiness is a heart filled with devotion.

Years ago, while walking near the Yamuna, I met a simple gardener in Vrindavan. Unfortunately, his field of roses had been wiped out that year by the flooding of the Yamuna. He therefore started to share his woes with me, like how he lost almost 200,000 rupees, which was particularly difficult for him as he had four daughters and needed to provide money for their dowry.  As he was complaining, however, I noticed something a bit unusual considering what he was telling me. His eyes and many of his facial features were sparkling with a type of joy. I therefore inquired from him how, despite all his travails, he could be so happy. His answer was profound, almost mantra-like, and I have since quoted it numerous times: “Happiness is a heart filled with devotion!”

 

Thus spoke me!

 

 

 

 

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #11 – The Seer, the Seen, and the Path of Bhakti

March 14th, 2022

Every morning Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura would step outside of his room, which was adjacent to the far wall of the temple room, and immediately take off his glasses before taking darshan of his Lordships from forty feet away, although he could hardly see without them.  A disciple who witnessed this made a humble inquiry as to why. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta’s answer was instructive: “I am not here to see Krishna, but to be seen by Krishna,” expressing the essence of how one in devotion views the world.

 

We can’t imitate Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta’s elevated mood. We shouldn’t therefore blind ourselves before the deity. Rather we need to open our eyes to the beauty of the deity to redirect our desires from looking at beauty for selfish enjoyment to relishing beauty in a devotional mood as an offering of the best to Krishna. What Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta was therefore demonstrating, more than a particular action, was the general principle of adjusting our view of the world, even towards the deities, from seeing the world as an object for our enjoyment from the standpoint of the enjoyer and controller (the seer), to seeing ourselves as objects of God’s pleasure from the position of a humble servant (the seen). Let’s briefly unpack his message to understand its importance. First, I will introduce a basic philosophical principle and give a personal example in an attempt to put this issue in a clearer context.

 

When, by dint of one’s constitution, what one desires cannot be fulfilled in reality, one’s desire can only be fulfilled in Illusion. When thinking on how to illustrate this principle an example came to mind from when I went to high school. David Siegal was exceptionally squat and overweight. Somehow, he desperately wanted to make the high school basketball team. We watched as he practiced day and night, but obviously he couldn’t make the team and his aspirations failed.  Shortly afterwards, we would see him, even in the winter, carrying a basketball and wearing the uniform of the New York Knicks, the city’s professional basketball team. When approached, he would only talk in all seriousness about the great game he played the night before at Madison Square Garden. Sadly, he had gone mad in trying to fulfill his constitutionally unobtainable wishes. Similarly, we desperately want to be the enjoyer and controller, a position we cannot have by our constitution. That unattainable wish attracts the illusory potency of Krishna (maya) to fulfill our desire by covering us from the reality of God’s immanence, a view of God’s all-pervasive presence that would obliterate the false ego or our desire for and sense of superiority. Maya literally means “not this” or illusion. In other words, to satisfy our impossible wish for a sense of dominance and control, maya puts us in the illusion that Krishna’s energy is not His, but instead separate from Him and meant for our enjoyment.

 

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta’s example was illustrating this exact same point. We are in reality “the seen”, the servant of God, but our false ego wants to be “the seer”, the center. Krishna fulfills this unreachable desire by putting us in the illusion that we are indeed primary, and that the world revolves around us to control and exploit. All devotional practices are meant to move us in consciousness from this deceptive centered self-identity by developing an attraction for Krishna, which puts God back in the center of the world and ourselves at the periphery in service as the seen. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta was indicating something more—that not only can we engage in devotional service to accomplish this, but we can also make a direct conscious effort to make this shift. So, I tried something.

 

My sitting place in Govardhan directly faces the hill a hundred yards way. As usual, I see the world, including the sacred mount, rotating around this little speck of consciousness garbed in a man’s body with saffron robes. I closed my eyes and instead envisioned Giriraja as the seer and my seat somewhere on the periphery begging for service. I prayed: “I am not here to see You my Lord, but to be seen by You.” I then lamented my lack of devotion.

 

 

 

 

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #10 – The Tale of Shlomo, The Greatest Yogi

March 7th, 2022

Shlomo was one of my favorites. I met him 1982. He was an older Jewish man from Israel. He wasn’t a hippy, or one of the throngs of young cool Israelis who rushed to India after finishing the pressure cooker of their compulsory military service from eighteen to twenty years of age, or any of the kind of typical alternative Western pilgrim that would occasionally trek to India at the time. When I first met him, I just couldn’t place him in India. He was a simple, squat, balding, over-weight Jewish family man who was suffering, like most people, on the daily grind of work and family. It seems in that anxiety, and a thirst for some adventure, he got a sudden itch to follow some of his younger compatriots to India. According to him, he had no idea what Vrindavan was, or why he particularly came there on his pilgrimage. As he recalled, he was just mysteriously directed to Vrindavan and to our temple where something inexplicable happened.  When he got to the altar of Śrī Śrī Rādhā Śyāmasundara and gazed upon Their beautiful forms, he became overwhelmed with an intense joy. He broke down in uncontrollable tears and surrendered right then and there to Their lotus feet and never wavered in that conviction for nearly forty years. Strange? Not really, if you understand the way of faith.

 

Faith is trust by experience. We move and commit ourselves where we experience some happiness, but faith is not a trust in just some temporary stimulation or ego boost, but true sublimity in relation to God. Those on a legitimate spiritual path often come by an experience of divinity so profound, so transcendent, so undeniable that the maturity of that experience becomes their goal for the rest of their life. I don’t remember all the details, but at least for some time he stayed in our temple and had the fortune to serve in the deity kitchen under its head cook, Śrī Vibhu Caitanya, who was universally recognized in our community as its greatest saint. I was sometimes amused by the letters Shlomo got from his family. While some of us were getting letters from parents imploring their children not to commit ourselves to Krishna consciousness, his letters were from a new angle we hadn’t seen before. This time it was a parent that was being warned by their children. I remember one from his daughters: “Daddy, Daddy don’t join the cults!” But Shlomo was neither deterred in his faith, nor irresponsible to his family responsibilities.

 

After his short time in India was up, he went back and took care of his family, but remained unflinchingly dedicated to his spiritual path, eventually retiring to serve in the temple there. One learned friend shared his realization with me that our taste in Krishna consciousness, what activities in devotional life we have a passion for, are our doors to spiritual world. Shlomo was a grandfatherly presence to the younger devotees, especially the young girls that came, as he had daughters himself whom he cared for when they were younger. He liked to do that, but mostly his passion was prasādam. He loved to cook for the devotees. I remember when visiting Israel, he passionately shared with me his deep appreciation for Gauranga potatoes, a buttered, sour cream and sauteed potato prasādam. Yes, he was anything but an archetypical yogi. He just loved Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī and to distribute and taste the prasādam from the deities.

 

Last week in Vrndavan, when I was walking from my room in the Russian Building, I saw my friend Shlomo, now in his eighties and initiated as Vibhisana das, sitting on the stoop in front of the simple guesthouse, which has been his residence for many years. He loves to sit there in the winter chanting and basking in the sun and his fortune. He goes to the temple every morning without fail on crutches, which is fifty meters down from his door. It takes forever, but he tells me how he relishes every step. He needs a chair when he gets there, so he sits in the back in one provided for him. Although he can’t see the deities over to the packed temple crowd standing in front of him, he can see the video screen on the wall. When Śrī Rādhā’s form comes into view, he cries out of joy for the whole ārati and then slowly shuffles off to his room. He loves Vrindavan, and by Krishna’s blessing he will meet his vow to never leave there for the rest of his life.

 

I sat next to him for a short while, as I often do when passing him, to feel his affection and show my own. That day he looked up at me and with deep gratitude said, “I could never imagine such an old age!” Imagine such an old age? He lives in the simplest of rooms and in a rundown guesthouse, can barely walk, but is the happiest man in the world. In his final years he has the blessings of Śrī Vrindavan with the association of the devotees, but most importantly he has Śrī Rādhā in his heart. He sometimes gently pounds his heart and talks about Śrī Rādhā’s mercy in utter disbelief that he has earned a drop: “I wake of up in the morning, and I am still here. And look where I am!”

 

When you talk to Vibhisana, he seems to be filled with gratitude for every breath in the land of Śrī Rādhā. I remember him years ago expressing to me the suffering he had experienced in life before Krishna consciousness, but whatever that difficulty was, rather than making him bitter, had simply increased his feelings of appreciation for the peace and joy that Śrī Rādhā has offered this humble soul.

 

Shlomo can’t touch his toes or even sit with his legs crossed. He never could, nor does he seem to possess, any other feature of the classic or modern fit yogi, but somehow by Śrī Rādhā’s grace he has become the greatest yogi, for he lives focused in a heart welling with gratitude for the unfathomable mercy of his spiritual master and Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. And that is the tale of Shlomo, the greatest yogi!

 

“And of all yogis, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all.” (Bg. 6.47)

 

 

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #9 – I want to be a Vaishnava!

February 28th, 2022

I want to be a Vaishnava! [1]

November 7, 2016

 

Amidst the throngs of seemingly ordinary people here in Vrindavan, just one old Vaishnava sadhu has to smile and greet you in his raspy voice “Jai Ho, Maharaja!” and you realize why you have come to this place. Does that sound sentimental? After living here for more than forty years, that is my strong conviction, that the endearing voices and bountiful smiles of such beautiful people inform us powerfully of the real goal in life: to become simple hearted, happy, and in a mood of service. Yes, the beautiful things in life are simple and sweet, because they are born not from opulence but from the hearts of devotion. And that’s the glory of Vrindavan, the jewels of mādhurya (sweetness) that are hidden in the hearts of the real vraja-vāsīs, those who are born in Vrindavan or who live there and imbibe its mood.

 

Yesterday I mined one.

 

Govinda Kuṇḍa is just a forty-minute walk down the parikramā path from my place near Dana Ghati (the place of the tax pastime). It sits next to the side of Govardhana Hill. It’s where Indra performed the ceremonial bath of Krishna to beg pardon for his offense, and those bath waters formed this beautiful pond. Five of us took a late-morning outing there to visit this small sadhu hamlet.

 

Our visit eventually took us down a small road off the main path on the southern side of the kuṇḍa that ended at a yellow iron gate with a sign above announcing the place as the ashram of the renowned late Vaishnava saint and mystic Manohar Baba. We entered and walked straight alongside the ashram building under an enclosed pavilion to the end of the property, where we faced an old wooden door. We cautiously pushed the door open and entered a dimly light hall and the altar of small Sri Madana-mohana deities. A simple sadhu was sitting there chanting, but he immediately stood up to greet us and beamed, “Prasādam, prasādam,” enthusiastically pointing our way through a corridor to the back of the property, where their kitchen and prasādam hall stood.

 

As we entered the rustic kitchen pavilion of this ancient ashram, Sitanath Baba, the recently installed mahant of the place, was standing over an open fire vigorously stirring a wok of vegetables. When he saw us enter, he turned and also beamed, “Prasādam, prasādam,” pointing to a single-plank table with chairs for our group all facing where Sitanath was cooking as another joyful sadhu fed us a sumptuous meal. Sitanath then suddenly left his cooking to scurry around the ashram to find whatever he could in to please us, from their special stash of sweets for guests to hot cow’s milk at the end.

 

We felt so welcomed. I loved their culture, especially their smiles, worn almost as badges of their faith. And what was their faith? It was the happiness of prīti, or love, their deep conviction that pleasure is not to enjoy or control the world but to genuinely serve God and his devotees. And that’s what Vraja, the holy district of Vrindavan, really is, what I really hanker for—the simple heart of service reflected in the beautiful smiles of its residents.

 

Once, when a faithful disciple of Srila Prabhupada said to him, “You are greatest Vaishnava!” he became grave and replied, “No! Vaishnava is not an ordinary thing!” Of course, part of being of Vaishnava is humility, and in one’s deep hunger for the service of God one naturally feels a lack of devotion. Indeed, Srila Prabhupada was one of the greatest Vaishnavas, but he highlighted the rarity and value of a simple heart and mood of service.

 

Being here in Vraja and being inspired by the Vaishnavas here, I find that my chanting has taken up a singular prayer for this auspicious month of Kartik:

 

“I want to be a Vaishnava!”

 


[1] I wasn’t able to complete this week’s Monday Morning Greetings. I have chosen to publish a reprint about a pilgrimage I took in 2016 here in Govardhan to one of my favorite places. I have chosen this entry because I visited that same place this week and was similarly inspired by the humility and the sweetness of the devotees there.

 

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #8 – I Fell in Love with a Mountain and Other Govardhan Musings

February 21st, 2022

I Fell in Love with a Mountain

 

I gaze towards the path just outside my ashram gate. A river of faithful scurry around Govardhan. My favorites? The old Brijabasi ladies whose Olympic pace seem to defy their age. Their dress? Have you ever seen Granny from the show Beverley Hillbillies?[1] I put my ear to the ground. I hear only kirtans or joyful chatter. Even the struggling out-of-town businessmen with their puri and pakora potbellies seem to somehow enjoy the arduous five-to-seven-hour trek. I hit the ground in prayer. I’m off. My own trek of gratitude begins.

 

Roti Baba

 

I pass a twenty-foot lean-to kitchen on my right that is open to the pilgrim road, the dwelling of Roti Baba. I have gone by that shanty thousands of times. I have never failed to see him majestically standing there, well over six feet, strongly built, light swarthy complexion, shirtless, covered with a short white cotton wrap from waist to knees, sporting a perfect long grey sadhu beard and dreadlocked beehive hair. He is the emblem of calm, the picture of perfect dignity, as he soberly oversees his operation of volunteers who feed hundreds, often thousands, of pilgrims day and night. His specialty: rotis!  As I pass by, I bow my head, appreciating his life of steady service.

 

Seeing Govardhan

 

The real Vrindavan is the hearts of the residents and pilgrims. It takes only a simple kirtan to bring their mood of devotion to the surface. If their smiles fortunately touch your heart, you too may become blessed with a vision of the dhāma. Then what was once a land too often carelessly cluttered with refuse becomes the spiritual world. It is still two hundred yards to Jatipur, but I can distinctly smell the sour milk spoiling in its gutters from the gallons of milk poured daily in non-stop ceremonial bath of Govardhan. I immediately think, “Spoiled milk incense – my favorite brand!” – reminding me of the rivers of devotion offered at the feet of Sri Giriraja. I love it!

 

Super Bol![2]

 

I pass the Jaya Radhe team. You heard me right. They all wear red sweatshirts with their team’s name “Jaya Radhe” scribed on the back of the shirt below their shoulders and their number just below that. What’s their sport? Who do they compete against? I inquire. They are a group of men from Gwalior in their thirties. Years ago, they bonded together with the vow to yearly do a daṇḍavat parikrama around Govardhan beginning on Rasa Purnima. They sit together exhausted, but in bliss, a short respite from their tapasya before they continue their six-hour daily jaunt, the first day of a week-long effort. What a team! By dint of their determination and devotion I am certain they have won the Super Bol.

 

Radha Tantra

 

I arrive back at the ashram. Sri Madhava Misra is finishing up a Radha Tantra yajña in my courtyard. Radha Tantra? He asked to use my courtyard on Rasa Purnima for a fire yajña to invoke auspiciousness for the world. My thing is the shakti of the holy name, but he is kindhearted and expert. It doesn’t hurt that he is the grandson of Acarya Prabhakar, Srila Prabhupada’s first disciple,[3] and loves to serve the devotees of ISKCON. He is fifty now and had, since the age of nine, traveled for more than thirty-five years with his guru perfecting his spiritual craft until his guru passed from this world a few years ago. Anyway, I trust my instincts that his intentions are good. It seems he is the real deal tantra. It’s quite a spectacle of svāhās seen practically no other place in the world. He sat for the last nine hours without blinking, focused on his craft of feeding a hundred kilos of the finest oud and agar wood and other fine ingredients into an emblazed twelve-foot square aṣṭa-dhātu kunda[4]. I sat for a while chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and with each svāhā I offered myself to the fire in service to Sri Radha. Only in India, only in Govardhan. Yes, I have fallen in love with a mountain!

 

 


[1] Granny was a prominent character on the popular sit-com from the 60s called the Beverley Hillbillies. The local village Brijabasi ladies typically wear a skirt to their ankles with a buttoned-down shirt past their waist. Just reminded me of her character from that show.

[2] Sometimes it is difficult to know the frame of my audience, which is international. The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in the USA.

[3] https://prabhupadabooks.com/letters/bombay/may/01/1974/acarya_prabhakar_mishra

[4] A fire sacrifice is often done in a kunda, a vat to contain the fire. Aṣṭa-dhātu is when something is an octo-alloy, made of eight different metals.

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #7 – Do You Really Think it is OK That They Abandoned Their Babies?

February 14th, 2022

Well, who is this about? The answer is a bit bewildering. It is about Krishna’s greatest devotees. When the gopīs heard Krishna’s flute, they immediately abandoned whatever they were doing, even putting down the young babies in their arms, just to run off to the forest to see their beloved Krishna. We can say this is lila, the Lord’s play, but what about the little ones?  Somehow even couched in the concept of transcendence, it just doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t a devotee think of others before themself, what to speak of the mood of the topmost ones? To reconcile this, we need to talk about the relationship between responsibility and renunciation. What scope, if any, within the philosophy of Krishna consciousness, is there justification for the abandonment of one’s duties, even such consequential responsibilities as the protection of those dependent on our care?

 

The Bhagavad-gītā seems to support that one who realizes the soul is not bound by any duties at all:

 

“But for one what takes pleasure in the self, whose human life is one of self-realization and who is satisfied in the self only, fully satisfied—for him there is no duty.” (3.17)

 

That’s all fine—that one who is self-realized has no duty. However, Krishna makes it clear in the verses that follow this one that although the duties that are prescribed to purify one’s individual material condition lose rule over one who has transcended that condition, it doesn’t mean one gives those duties up. In fact, Krishna recommends not to. And the reason Krishna specifically gives is because of the harm that abandonment of duties can do, not only for those one is responsible for, but for the health of society in general.[1]  Krishna even uses Himself as an example. Although naturally there are no duties prescribed for Him, He still does them out of concern for the harm it would cause to society if He renounced them, both to those who are not qualified to transcend them, but would follow His example, and the effect people leaving their duties would have on a healthy social structure.

 

“If I did not perform prescribed duties, all these worlds would be put to ruination. I would be the cause of creating unwanted population, and I would thereby destroy the peace of all living beings.” (3.22-24)

 

Krishna couldn’t be clearer. A bhakta must never think selfishly in his transcendent pursuits. He must be cognizant about the effect of his actions, and therefore must perform certain karmic duties, even if they no longer are relevant to his personal condition and consequent purification. But is that always the case?

 

Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava history is filled with examples from Śrī Caitanya, who left home at the age of twenty-four, to Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, who abandoned dependents, in this case a young wife, without any issues for a seemingly higher cause. There are contemporary examples also. Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja had two young daughters, but left his family in the middle of the night when he felt a strong calling to serve his guru’s mission. Was that wrong?

 

I think the answer is found in the purport of the verse I quoted above (3.17), where Śrīla Prabhupāda explains:

 

“By such cleaning of consciousness, one becomes fully confident of his eternal position in relationship with the Supreme. His duty thus becomes self-illuminated by the grace of the Lord, and therefore he no longer has any obligation to the Vedic injunctions.”

 

In other words, one who is self-realized is no longer ruled by obligatory junctions but is instead directly inspired from within. Although that self-illumination almost always directs the self-realized to continue in his duties at least until his family responsibilities are covered, as in the case of Arjuna, who was directed to fight in battle for righteous reasons, Krishna can also direct one in exceptional cases to leave home prematurely. And if that is the case, and the person is truly in communion with a higher direction, Krishna assures His unmotivated devotee that he will be protected from any sin.[2] In terms of others, one can also be assured that Krishna will also protect them, as guaranteed in the famous adage and analogy that when one waters the root of the tree (full surrender and service to God) all the leaves and branches are replenished (it is auspicious for everyone).

 

Back to the gopīs.[3] I explained the principle of full surrender and how Krishna fully protects those who are, and how full surrender automatically invokes auspiciousness for everyone. As a needed caution, I also explained the rarity of Krishna directing one to renounce worldly dharma, even for spiritually elevated devotees. The gopīs, however, saw Krishna face to face.[4] Therefore, in all their activities their pure love of God nourished the world and everyone in connection with them, even when renouncing their “worldly” dharma to see Krishna. By His grace, how can it be otherwise?[5]

 

 


[1] The word Krishna uses is loka-saṅgraham (keeping the world together).

[2] “Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.” (Bg. 18.66)

[3] Another reason that the gopīs cannot be held responsible for the abandonment of their family is that on the level of continuous samādhi, especially the full absorption after hearing Krishna call them, has no awareness of the buddhi (intelligence), manasā (mind), or ego (external identity), and thus societal relationships.

[4] The purpose of this post is to explain the gopīs actions by discussing how one dictated by Krishna is absolved of any sin. I should note however, that it’s not always easy to perfectly port the “lessons” from Krishna-līlā into our world. The gopīs teach us absolute surrender, but not necessarily how we are supposed to absolutely surrender in our own lives. The laws of Krishna-līlā and yogamāyā are different from ours. I doubt that babies left alone in Vraja starve or are kidnapped or killed. But they can be in our world. So we take the correct lesson and inspiration from them, but that doesn’t mean we can do the same exact things.

[5] In discussing this post with another devotee, they referred me to Krishna Sandarbha Anuccheda 177 where this subject is discussed. A short excerpt from Śrī Jīva’s interesting commentary. “Though it is said they had children, it refers to the children of the husbands’ relatives. If they had children, it would produce rasābhāsa because of irregularity in the vibhāva.

 

 

Monday Morning Greetings 2022 #6 – On Criticism

February 7th, 2022

We just finished our first B.I.G. retreat (Bhakti Immersion Govardhan). It was one of our best. The facilities here are very good, and the prasadam and kirtans were especially wonderful. Between preparing and giving classes, long kirtans, and absorbing parikramas, there literally was not a moment free for anything else, especially writing. I will therefore share with you a previous post. First, here are some short videos of our kirtans: Bhakti Immersion Govardhan Kirtans Part 1 and Part 2.

 

 

On Criticism
October 10, 2016

 

“The poison of that which you criticize comes to you.”

 

“Criticism is worse that throwing a spear in someone’s body, because the spear can only pierce the body but criticism can pierce the heart.”

 

“Criticism is worse than envy. Envy is when it is in the heart. Criticism is when it comes out.”

 

I have repeated these statements often. I am sure I read them someplace, though I can’t find their reference. I have no difficulty, however, embracing their conclusion. And here is one strong, clearly referenced statement about the necessity to avoid criticism:

 

“Of the nine processes of devotional service, the most important is to always chant the holy name of the Lord. If one does so, avoiding the ten kinds of offenses, one very easily obtains the most valuable love of Godhead.” (Caitanya-caritāmṛta Antya 4.71)

 

It’s a good reference, for the most serious of the ten offenses against the holy name is criticism. Of course, the word for criticism used here, nindā, is qualified by the word sadhu, and there is also allowance for constructive criticism. We will get to that, but we need to realize that the stakes for an offender are high: you won’t get love of Godhead. And for the devotee, that is everything. Best to err on the side of caution.

 

I struggle with that. So many people, devotees who are dedicated and senior, sometimes do things that disturb me. How can one not criticize? Be careful! If one’s criticism is not born of compassion but harbors even a trace of ill will, that hate will certainly cover the soul, for the soul is simply consciousness meant for love and devotion.

 

And if I think about it honestly, I too must do things that serve as fuel for other people’s lower nature. We all struggle with our own impurities and conditioning, and it’s bound to be just the thing that annoys someone else, especially someone with a different nature. That is simply the way of the world. But I don’t want to be a self-righteous hypocrite who is always clamoring for justice for others and mercy for himself.

 

But what about all the injustice? By all means, speak up and speak up strongly, but first make sure there is no hate in your own heart; otherwise your kirtan of others’ faults, which merely embodies the impurities of your own heart, will spread only hate of others, not love of God. We have seen too often that the modern champions of controversy create threads that attract mostly the bitter.

 

I remember reading in a history of the Gauḍīyā Math of a younger devotee who had a very critical intelligence. He would often see things that were wrong. But when he sought the counsel of a senior and elevated Vaishnava, he was given a piece of simple advice—“Observe and don’t talk”—and he followed that instruction for the rest of his life and attained spiritual heights. Yes, it may be one’s service to point out mistakes. I just don’t envy that person, and I pray they are pure. Otherwise:

 

“We all become well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly… Most frontal attacks on evil just produce another kind of evil in yourself, along with a very inflated self-image to boot.”— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.

 

My prayer is to be a Vaishnava. In so many places in shastra that is defined as one who is free from the propensity to criticize others. Who else can a Vaishnava be other than one who has no hate in his or her heart? I hanker for such saṅga. And by Srila Prabhupada’s grace, there are many such souls. I just have to be the bee that seeks the honey and not the fly that looks for the sores.

 

I conclude with another statement that I often repeat without a reference but which I embrace whole-heartedly:

 

Bhakti is simple. Even a child can do it. What is difficult is avoiding offense.”

 

 

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