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October 29-30, 2001

October 30th, 2001

Vrindaban

“O Radha-Giridhari, decorate my statements so that they may be pleasing to Your Lordship and inspire the devotees to increase their devotional service to Your lotus feet.”

Writing has been so easy for the last year, but my page has been practically blank for the last few days since entering Vrindaban. Why? Maybe I have become proud. We cannot claim any abilities independent of God. All potencies are His, to be given and taken at His will. God may therefore mercifully withdraw our so-called talents to enlighten us, especially in Vrindaban, where the internal potency reigns to nourish the Lord’s service and frustrate the false ego?the sense of doer-ship independent of the Lord’s empowerment.

That’s the dhama?only for Radha! Am I ready?

Vrindaban I heard some good

October 28th, 2001

Vrindaban

I heard some good news. His Grace Bhurijan Prabhu, his wife, Her Grace Jagattarini Prabhu, and His Holiness Sacinandana Swami will be in Govardhana at the beginning of December leading a sadhana retreat for two weeks. They are all dear friends, advanced in Krishna consciousness, and I am eager to spend time with them. I will extend my stay at Govardhana for another two weeks after Kartik and hope to attend part of their retreat. We always require siksa, instructions on how to hone and increase our practice of Krishna consciousness.

Factually, we are not so advanced as to gain much advantage from our visit to the holy dhama. The sadhus, however, are quite capable of realizing the glories of the dhama. Therefore, they frequent the holy dhama, and we also find solace there, but only for their association.

It can’t be stressed enough: The most effective way of nurturing bhakti is sadhu-sanga.

October 26-27, 2001

October 27th, 2001

Vrindaban

A few social visits, some business to attend. Not much else to say. Vrindaban is meant for bhajan. Hopefully in a few days I will be ready for the real business of life?-chanting and hearing about Krishna-?and then perhaps I will really have something to say.

Vrindaban It’s been seven months

October 25th, 2001

Vrindaban

It’s been seven months since I’ve visited Vrindaban, my longest self-imposed exile from Vrindaban in twenty-two years. My entrance to the holy dhama, however, always invokes the same emotions?and in the same order. A sense of relief, a feeling of worthlessness and humility, and a charge of exhilaration and excitement followed by a glimmer of devotion. And the same persons always usher me in: Gopal, the blissful brijbasi driver, Dadu,the saintly mailman, and the ominous black snake at Kesi-ghata. I’ve described my pattern of entering the dhama many times. Patterns repeat, so there’s not much need to say more, except for my encounter with that ominous black snake. Our meeting took on a new twist, and it merits a few words more.

Another set piece to my fixed pattern of entering Vrindaban is to bathe in the Yamuna before doing anything else. I wouldn’t feel fit to be here without the powerful purifying effect of Her merciful waves. Thus on my request Gopal, my friendly and lovable brijbasi driver, drove me directly from Delhi Airport to the bank of the Yamuna at Kesi-ghata.

As I strolled on the path above the stone stairs of the intricately carved red sandstone ghata looking for a suitable place to enter his holiest of rivers, I spotted a large black snake on the bottom step of the first of the five separate bathing sections comprising Kesi-ghata. I was twenty feet away and looked carefully to see if it was just a piece of tire or a rope, but it was moving. It was a large dangerous black snake! I continued my walk, but with apprehension, somewhat fearful to bathe in the river that my big black friend seemed to be protecting. With trepidation, I quickly entered the Yamuna a few sections down, rapidly submerged myself three times, and with relief, immediately vaulted myself to shore. Proceeding back along the same path I again passed the first section of the ghata where I first spotted the snake. There he was, still there, and in the exact same position. From the top of the steps I looked at him again. Yep, he was still moving?but why was it in the same exact place? I squinted and focused again. No! It was only a piece of a black bicycle tire. Before bathing, I took off my glasses and any object twenty feet away naturally appeared blurry, unfocused, and slightly vibrating. The cause of my fear was not real, but in my mind!

A realization came akin to what I have been thinking and preaching about for weeks since the World Trade Tower disaster-?that the fearful world we live in is a product of our mind and not the actual nature of reality. Here was a classic example: the rope and the snake. For five minutes I lived in a world threatened by a dangerous snake, which in fact, existed solely in my mind. I realized that just as the presence of this snake was enough to alter my view of the world and determine my actions and feelings?in spite of the fact that it was a creation of the mind?similarly, we always live a world of self-created fears that determine our actions and feelings, but are, in truth, creations of the mind. For example, we live in constant fear of death. Non-existence, or death, however, is just as much an illusion for the eternal, undying self as the big black snake that haunted my entrance to the dhama.

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Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York

September 17th, 2001

Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York City

This is my last emergency journal as I am leaving this afternoon. I wasn’t able to send one yesterday due to the distraction caused by VD. I wrote him personally and received somewhat of an apology and so many letters of support and appreciation for the journal arrived that had to be attended to. Here’s a short message of appreciation from my esteemed god-brother His Holiness Giriraj Swami that also offers some insight on the tragedy from the Bhagavatam.

“Dear Maharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I very much appreciated your timely response to our recent calamity.

Thank you.

balasya neha saranam pitarau nrsimha
nartasya cagadam udanvati majjato nauh
taptasya tat-pratividhir ya ihanjasestas
tavad vibho tanu-bhrtam tvad-upeksitanam

“My Lord Nrsimhadeva, O Supreme, because of a bodily conception of life, embodied souls neglected and not cared for by You cannot do anything for their betterment. Whatever remedies they accept, although perhaps temporarily beneficial, are certainly impermanent. For example, a father and mother cannot protect their child, a physician and medicine cannot relieve a suffering patient, and a boat on the ocean cannot protect a drowning man.” (SB 7.9.19)

Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Giriraj Swami”

Maybe the most interesting response was from Jan Potemkin, a high school friend who is also a recipient of the journal. Jan is a lawyer on Broadway, a practicing Buddhist, a gentle and pious man, and a very independent thinking and perceptive person. He was fascinated by the flurry of exchanges concerning VD and I thought his outside, and therefore certainly neutral response, would be of particular interest to the reader. It’s quite insightful:

“I’m glad to hear all is well with you and the ashram, and I found the last few journal entries interesting. I was a little surprised that you put the whole exchange with VD, but it was certainly interesting.

“Your letters contain several examples of caring and compassion. You advised one devotee to gently point out to his mother (?) that Krishna consciousness has given him some help in coping with this disaster.

“However, I can understand that there must have been devotees who have made light of people’s ‘material’ difficulties. ‘Just chant’ is sometimes not correct advice. Maybe VD had some bad experience in the past like that. Or maybe he is exhibiting what is called transference of emotional response. He can’t express his anger about the terrorists so he lets it out inappropriately. Or maybe he is mad at you for some other reason. Or maybe he is mad at Krishna?

“At any rate, the whole exchange was interesting.”

To help VD I sent a copy of Jan’s letter to him. He acknowledged his insights and sent the following reply:

“I appreciate what the Broadway lawyer wrote about my message. I definitely have baggage towards ISKCON and Guru that is transferring. That makes it hard to be sensitive.”

Sriman Satyaraja Prabhu will be happy with VD’s acknowledgement. He just returned to the city yesterday, read the journals, sent a short message of appreciations and then added:

“I applaud Mahamuni Prabhu’s fair and even compassionate assessment of Vic, and I would only add that Vic should now be humble enough to reconsider his statements and offer a public apology (unless he has already done so). I wish him all the best and pray for his progress in Krishna consciousness.”

I have never lived so close to such a magnitude of agony. It affects you. There was not a day here upon rising that I didn’t think of the suffering here and grieve for the anguish it caused.

I visited 26 2nd Ave on Friday. It was the first time I saw many of the congregation. The disaster touched several of them personally as they lost lose friends who worked at the World Trade Center.

Several had tales of horror. Yogesh, an administrator at the World Financial Center, 160 feet from the World Trade Towers, was stepping off the ferry a thousand feet away when the first plane crashed. When the first building collapsed he ran with his fellow workers quickly back towards the Hudson River. Several of his colleagues just jumped directly into the river. I cannot describe the horrors he saw next to him as the building crashed and the debris flew wildly in all directions.

Donia Salem left her room in midtown Manhattan in the evening for fresh air when all of a sudden the Empire State Building was being evacuated. When she looked back, she saw the police also running. She was chased all the way to the FDR Drive and then told to move uptown, leaving her homeless at 10:30 at night, a frightening experience for a young twenty-two year old student just two weeks living in New York City. Fortunately, a family friend gave her shelter.

Some were miraculously saved. Ed Keenan was politicked out of a job on the 92nd floor of the South Building a few months before, and then soon after lost a job on the 82nd floor of the North Building.

I am running short of time here to write something more. There is so much more to say. Seeing what happened, sensing the distress it caused, dealing with the uncertainty and fear it caused, and answering the deep metaphysical questions that such a magnitude of torment brings concerning the nature of God, practically the whole philosophy of Krishna consciousness was brought to life.

You will hear from me again soon, and perhaps this will be discussed further. Soon other journals that were put on hold will be sent out. I thank you all for the many letters I’ve received with your support and insights.

My flight to India on Thursday was cancelled.

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” – John Steinbeck

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Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York

September 13th, 2001

Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York City

“The drowning man is not troubled by rain” (Persian Proverb)

We worry about such trivial things. In the face of calamity such worries seem petty. The Bhagavatam teaches that we are always facing impending disaster?that everyman is “the man who is about to die”? and thus our daily worries are always trifling.

The Bhagavad Gita says that the wise lament neither for the living nor the dead. Does that mean devotees are callous to suffering? No. However, we do not lament for the inevitable. Dying is inevitable no matter what form it takes. What we do lament for is the real cause of suffering – identification with the body due to ignorance. Out of compassion we therefore try to enlighten others with real knowledge.

Some devotees asked if we should volunteer to help with the rescue effort in New York or perform other welfare work. They cited the example of Cardinal Egan of the Roman Catholic Church who was immediately at St Vincent’s Hospital, the main trauma center, lending his support. It is a religious principle to help save life and devotees should not be callous (see SB 10.1.48). It is a principle of devotional service that one should not give unnecessary pain to any living entity (see devotional principle eighteen in the Nectar of Devotion). Bhakti requires a soft heart, so we should be cautious to avoid coldness in the name of brahma jnana (introspection and philosophy). Srila Bhaktisiddanta thus instructed his grhastha disciples not to pass a beggar in need without giving them something. We are not needed, however, in New York to be rescuers of the body. We suffer for the pain of others and perform the more important duty of comforting and enlightening people with real knowledge.

A prominent NY psychologist advises, “People are in trauma because they are losing control of their lives. They need to sense some certainly in life, a situation where they can again sense that they are in control of their lives. They should be with their families and loved ones.”

I appreciate his sentiments from a standpoint of psychology, but it is a shallow view of reality. Are people ever in control of their lives? Doesn’t attachment to family just foster the illusion that this temporary life full of misery is our eternal position? Sukadeva Goswami advises:

“Persons devoid of atma-tattva do not inquire into the problems of life, being too attached to the fallible soldiers like the body, children and wife. Although sufficiently experienced, they still so not see their inevitable destruction.” (SB 2.1.4)

A devotee offered me an interesting theory on how newspapers in New York correspond with the four varnas (occupational duties). The Times is for brahmanas and ksatriyas, the Wall Street Journal for vaisyas, the Daily News for the sudras, and the Post for the untouchables. It’s an amusing theory.

It was hard to find a newspaper today as delivery trucks are not allowed below 14th street. A friend could only find the NY Post. I listened and thought about my friend’s theory as he shared some excerpts from their main editorial condemning terrorism and recommending action in the language of the common New Yorker.

EVIL BASTARDS KILLED THEM ALL [headline]
America bleeds. This is war. It needs to be prosecuted as such. The men behind the men who rained havoc on New York and Washington need to be called to account. The heavens need to fall on their heads. They need to bleed. Not next month. Not next week. Now. Cast a wide enough net, and you’ll catch the fish that need catching. And it is inconceivable that American Military intelligence – working with allies like Britain and Israel – doesn’t know where the big fish run. So locate them. Pinpoint them. Bomb them. And then bomb their smoldering rubble – one more time! They believe that they are on a fast track to Heaven. Which is fine. Dispatch enough of them on the journey with no return, and this war will end quickly enough. Bombs away.

I saw today the transcript of a lecture that His Holiness Radhantha Swami gave two days ago. It was a very brilliant and balanced exposition on the situation. Not discounting the appropriate proper military response to the terrorists, his lecture pinpointed the real cause of crime and terrorism – hate and envy in the heart. In that sense we all must share the blame for the tragedy.

I really appreciate Maharaja’s analysis. It’s something we may not want at this time to preach outside, but we cannot forget that collective sinful activity is the ultimate cause of calamity. The appropriate response to what happened can be viewed from different levels. I reflect on something I remember hearing Srila Prabhupada say from the standpoint of Varnasrama in terms of the duty of a statesman response to terrorism.

When some American soldiers were attacked in Cambodia 30 years ago, Srila Prabhupada was asked what the proper response would be. Reflecting in the mood of ksatriya leader he said something like, “If America became Krishna consciousness they would say, ‘If you harm one hair on the head of our man there will be fight!”

In conclusion we are all responsible. As long as sin and hate remain in our hearts there will be sinful reactions and disaster. The best response to calamity is to cleanse one’s heart….. and then kill those bastards!

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“It kept getting worse.”

September 12th, 2001

Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York City

Luke showed up at the door at eleven o’clock this morning and brought the New York Times. The opening sentence of its lead article (above) explained it all. Luke lives on 6th two blocks away so I joked with him, “It takes a national tragedy for you to visit the ashram.” Luke, however, was unusually somber. His mother was visiting his disabled sister at her Battery Park City apartment yesterday next to the World Trade Center. They were watching the burning towers and nearly got stampeded as they were literally forced to the ground by the power of the collapse before the mad rush began. He was initially in contact them, but didn’t hear from them again until evening when they were finally evacuated from the area by tugboat to the midtown pier on the Hudson River. He was still somewhat shaken from yesterday and we talked for some time.

At eleven o’clock I began my daily walk. The roads are now completely desolate, most shops and businesses closed, the quietude uncanny. It’s a once in a lifetime New York sans passion, no running here and there. People are sad, but the mode in New York is so much more peaceful. I pass the regal Middle Collegiate Church on 2nd Ave. Its doors are surprisingly wide open, as are every church I eventually passed this morning, welcoming the distressed souls for shelter. As I stop and curiously look inside a man standing on the steps, about sixty, casually and neatly dressed, wearing a baseball cap, looks up and sincerely invites me in to pray. A few people in the front pews sit with heads down. I sit in the back and chant on beads quietly appreciating a sacred space and praying for Krishna’s mercy.

I return to the ashram. There’s a phone call from Akincan Krishna. He asks,”My mother is falling apart and wants to see me. Should I see it as an opportunity to help her understand God consciousness? She has been so averse to religion that she immediately becomes indignant and shuts off even at the mention of it”

I advise. “Try to increase her understanding, but be sensitive to her trauma. There is no set formula. Judge the situation and apply your intelligence accordingly. Perhaps tell her that you also find it difficult, but the knowledge and insight you’ve gained by philosophy and theology enable you to cope with such difficulties. You may try to explain that all bona-fide creeds of spirituality and wisdom teach that stability and happiness lie not in our destiny (which is beyond our power) but in our perspective and response to it (which is in our control).

I check my email. There’s a lot of response to the journal sent yesterday on the disaster here. I read:

“I hope this does not lead to a full scale war, we will have to pray hard for calm amongst the countries, the world is now so far away from the simplistic life that once reigned on this planet.”

Why is there such widespread fear and insecurity? We have come to this world for material enjoyment and naturally use our environment for that purpose. Unsurprisingly, after a time, in any environment, as we learn more and more to employ and view it selfishly, we become attached. (By the covering potency of Maya even Indra, the king of heaven, became attached to his filth when cursed to take birth as a hog) As our world moves beyond our control by the force of destiny, we live in constant fear, especially in calamity, where our environment rapidly changes in a manner threatening our attachments. When such alterations foretell permanent hanges in our life, the fear is especially strong.

A devotee is detached. He is satisfied with God’s will regardless of what that means to his comforts and pleasures. He is thus sober and satisfied in all circumstances, beyond duality. Srila Prabhupada’s Godbrother, Srila Sridhara Swami, therefore offered us the very deep but relevant aphorism:

“If you’re not optimistic, you’re an atheist.”

Without Srila Prabhupada I would be just another fearful soul swept in uncertainty by the force of time. I offer my respectful obeisances to my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who kindly bestowed upon me the elixir of transcendental knowledge.

9/11

September 11th, 2001

Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York City

I am trying to see the world through the eyes of sastra and then relate that view for others. The scene outside is so devastating that it’s difficult to just be analytical. Should I? An hour ago I was standing on East 4th and Bowery. The roads are practically desolate except for the rushing of fire trucks, ambulances and police cars screeching in an endless procession to and from the West Side. Except for the constant sirens there is almost an eerie silence everywhere. Throngs of New Yorkers are hurriedly walking north almost like refugees in their own city, several covered completely in ash, even though the World Trade Center is burning to the southwest nearly forty blocks away. A young middle-class woman weeping uncontrollably runs past me into the middle of the street to embrace an ashen covered businessman, evidently her husband. She has been anxiously waiting in front of her apartment since news of the disaster broke, not sure if her husband was dead or alive.

Just yesterday I was again thinking that I am the controller, that my destiny is in my hands, and that the world I live in is an eternal reality under my control. What an illusion! A whole city was turned topsy-turvy in a second by the will of God, despite so-called plan makers and world organizers. What then is the stability of my little world and what power and intelligence do I have to control it.

With hundreds of other pedestrians Akincana Krishna was watching the World Trade Towers burn from Mercer and 4th street. He watched in shock as it suddenly crumbled and watched the onlookers crumble in heart with it. “It was horrible. The most inauspicious thing that I every saw”, he said somberly as he entered the ashram for shelter. His mother calls and starts crying uncontrollably, “I fear for the danger of humanity! I don’t know what’s happening! My son is trapped in Manhattan like a prisoner!” People are so much shaken as their environment and comforts have moved forcibly and controllably beyond their control, and they fear it is a shift with lifetime consequences.

Queen Kunti prayed for such calamity as such adversity brings one closer to reality. What is that reality? God and God’s energies! Everything else is an illusion. We tend to see that more clearly when the world we embrace shockingly reveals its impermanence. What does this mean for devotees? Hopefully, it means a reality check. Am I accepting material life as my eternal life and my present body as the eternal self? Am I overly attached to that illusion and thus investing too much of my energies in it, although such life has no endurance and is thus unreal? Am I endeavoring for real life, Krishna consciousness.

 

New York City People Profile

August 23rd, 2001

New York City

People Profile 2
Pradyumna called to confirm a ride with me to Upstate New York where he was to attend a lecture on social organics. I offered to pick him up as hisapartment in
Washington Heights on the way.

His apartment was in an old stately building. It was spacious, with six large rooms, and he shared it with two roommates. I was surprised at the cost of rent.
“Only $600 a month for the whole thing until last year when we decided to give the landlord more,” he volunteered when he greeted me at the door. Pradyumna’s room was fashioned just like the room he was living in when I first met him in 1976, when he was staying at Srila Prabhupada’s rooms at Radha-Damodar. No furniture, but piles and piles of books stacked ten rows back all around the room with a small mattress as his sitting place buried inside. When I first visited him at Radha-Damodar I thought no one was in until he popped his head up from behind the fortress of books and greeted me. Pradyumna was Srila Prabhupada’s Sanskrit editor and was affectionately called by him “Panditji.” He has a wealth of knowledge and is very respectful, especially to sadhus, but he is eclectic. I thus can never tell exactly where he now stands in his convictions, but it really doesn’t matter, since he’s always willing to discuss with me exclusively the conclusions of Gaudiya Vaisnavism.

Pradyumna showed me a rare Bengali book by a disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta who compiled an encyclopedia on Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur. It has hundreds of categories of Vaishnava truths with excerpts from Srila Bhaktivinoda’s explaining what he said on each subject. Some of the references, according to Pradyumna, are even from rare articles by Srila Bhaktivinoda. My hope is to get Pradyumna to translate it and then help him get it published.

Of all the people I know, there is no one who can so expertly conceptualize and express philosophy like Pradyumna. We were completely absorbed in discussion
for the whole two-hour drive.

We first talked about the nature of faith. Pradyumna was studying a book about Loa Tzu and I peeked at the title of an intriguing chapter entitled something like, “Partial Faith is Not Faith at All.” It lead to a very interesting discussion. I am working on a more extensive paper on the subject, but the conclusion of our discussion went something as follows:

Faith is a precursor to knowledge. In other words, certain knowledge, especially that which is numinous, requires a certain implicit acceptance of that knowledge before one can fully understand it. The crux of the guru/disciple relationship in any tradition is therefore faith in the teacher’s authority. This does not by any means promote blind acceptance.

The teacher must encourage inquiry, elicit doubts, and clear those doubts, but if the student becomes selective in his acceptance of his preceptor’s teachings?”I accept this, but not this”?he is doubting not just his own understanding, but his
teacher’s authority itself. His process of learning has thus become empiric and limited. In all mystical traditions, therefore, faith or belief is a prerequisite to understanding.

In this regard, “partial faith is not faith at all” because when one is selective in their acceptance of their teacher’s authority?even if only a small percentage of the time?it really means that one is accepting the authority of their teacher only when their teacher agrees with them. Thus one’s partial faith means that their faith is in their own authority, not their teacher’s, even if one agrees with their teacher 99 percent of the time.

Pradyumna gave a nice example of how partial, or selective, faith is not faith at all. “It’s like saying one has faith in Gaudiya Vaisnavism, but accepting Yasoda and not Nanda, or Krishna, but not Radha. You can’t be faithful to only select tenets of the tradition and then claim to be a faithful adherent of the tradition. You’re not. You’re faithful to a new tradition?your own, not Gaudiya Vaisnavism.”

Pradyumna also gave a nice example describing faith as the foundation of knowledge. He said that just like a building cannot rest if the foundation is not solid, but has cracks or spaces in it, when one’s faith is partial, the edifice of one’s knowledge cannot be built.

In his final analysis Pradyumna described faith as a condition of the mind that is a necessary component of learning and not just a mental conception.

When I mentioned my discussion with Pradyumna to Mahamuni, he offered an example he had just read from William James illustrating this same point?although the example is a bit unusual. William James said that when a boy wants to understand whether a girl loves him, he has to start with the faith that she does, otherwise he could never act in a way to elicit her love and find out.

The role of faith in understanding is a very complex subject and prone to misunderstanding. I feared that in relating our discussion some would certainly misread it. To test if my points were clear, I let Akincana Krishna dasa, who is here at the ashram, read it. He is a critical thinker,and would raise questions and doubts if something wasn’t to his understanding. His response was encouraging. “I’ve always understood this as our philosophy and a basic point in philosophy in general, although it may be a difficult concept for one to accept personally,” he said. “It’s ultimately a question of humility. One needs to be humble enough to accept that there are standard bodies of knowledge and that there are representatives of these teachings that are far more knowledgeable than we are.”

I just read a wonderful explanation about faith by C.S. Lewis:

Training the Habit of Faith

“Faith, in the sense in which I am using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever your reasons takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a ChristianI do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods “where they get off’, you can never be a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.

“The first step is to recognize the fact that your moods change. The next step is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time everyday. That is why daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of teh Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost theiir faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?”

Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York

August 20th, 2001

Bhaktivedanta Ashram – New York City

People Profiles I
My best friend from high school, Jan, visited again today. He’s a lawyer on Broadway, so he works nearby. He likes the ashram, and now even visits when I’m not here.

Jan’s a gentle and pious soul, not the usual city folk filled with an indomitable passion to get ahead. Fighting just seems against his nature, so being a New York City lawyer is especially a lot of tension for him. He works honestly, however, to support his wife and two children.

Jan has been a Buddhist for more than twenty years now, but he hasn’t forgotten the powerful experiences of Krishna consciousness in his life, mostly from the times when we used to visit the Henry Street temple in Brooklyn in 1970?a center hopping and buzzing with the fervent enthusiasm of a burgeoning spiritual and social phenomenon, the Hare Krishna Movement. These
remembrances, however, also give him pain. Twenty-five years as a practicing Buddhist and he can’t forget the overwhelming religious experience he had as a
devotee?the ecstasy that flooded his heart, the indelible attraction for bhakti that still remains, and the attraction and devotion for Krishna again awakening within heart with his regular visits to the ashram. His anguish lies over whether the tenets of Buddhism based on non-attachment to thinking are reconcilable with his positive innate attraction for thoughts of Krishna. Ultimately, he decided that Krishna consciousness was an experience that couldn’t and shouldn’t be denied, and that there was no reason that his strain of Zen Buddhism couldn’t accommodate it. I had no argument with that.

At first, however, we would argue. He’s a harmonist by nature, abhorring conflict, so he was disturbed by our discussions because they seemed to put us at odds. I wasn’t trying to be confrontational, but how can intimate friends meet after twenty years and not share their cherished values and conceptions, even when,
from my standpoint, they are in such opposition? After several unpleasant meetings we finally agreed to avoid the strong issues of contention and center our meetings on prasadam. We strongly agreed that the prasadam expertly prepared by Yajna Purusa is always excellent.

Jan often speaks of his overpowering experience of rapture during his first darshan of the Sri Sri Radha-Govinda Deities in New York, an experience that has endured twenty-five years of countless hours and instructions of Zen Meditation. From his portrayal, it fits the descriptions of bhava-bhakti in the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu?the devotional ecstasy that overcomes even a neophyte when he approaches the Deity without offense.

I’ve also had similar experiences of rapture in approaching Krishna consciousness in innocence. I assumed that everyone who came Krishna consciousness had similar encounters. Sometimes, I’ve wondered if devotees today actually have the same experiences, or if there was something very special when Srila Prabhupada was directly at the helm of the Hare Krishna Movement that made such experiences accessible. And ultimately, I believe they do. Otherwise, how have they endured throughout all that’s happened over the last several years?

My talk today with Jan centered on Harikesa, who was also a close friend of his. Following Harikesa’s breakdown he again contacted Jan and they’ve had regular contact since. Meeting two friends after almost thirty years, who both became devotees but whose destiny on the devotional path wound up so variant, intrigues Jan. I listened intently as Jan described his recent two-week visit to Harikesa’s place in France. I was happy that Harikesa seemed less angry and distraught and that he was still a Vaishnava, although his conceptions of Krishna
consciousness are still quite a departure from our tradition. He did tell Jan an interesting story about Srila Prabhupada.

“Harikesa was sitting next to Srila Prabhupada on the airline when a movie about Ravi Shankar began to play. Harikesa was very strict in his Krishna consciousness, but the most difficult thing for him was to give up his guitar and music. He thus began to listen with almost vicarious relief as Ravi Shankar was playing incredible riffs on the sitar, but at the same time feeling the pressure of sitting next to Srila Prabhupada. The thought weighed heavily on his ability to enjoy the music. He closed his eyes and began to relish, hoping against hope that it would be sanctioned. Suddenly he heard the pin of Srila Prabhupada whisper apparently burst the balloon of his attachment. ‘It’s maya!’ Submissively, but disappointedly, Harikesa nodded. Just as he was about to sink to the floor, Srila Prabhupada whispered again, ‘[but it’s] good maya!'”

Five o’clock. Jan has to pick up his daughter at summer camp before returning home. He excuses himself, respectfully pays obeisances to Gaura-Nitai, leaves a
donation, and thanks the devotees. Nice to see an Old friend.

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