```json
{
    "title": "Monday Morning Greetings 2020 #22 – Have I Become Nārada Muni and Other Pandemic Musings",
    "url": "https://wavesofdevotion.com/2020/06/01/have-i-become-narada-muni-and-other-pandemic-musings/",
    "datePublished": "2020-06-01",
    "dateModified": "2020-05-31",
    "language": "en-US",
    "description": "Have I Become Nārada Muni? A vision came. It was post quarantine New York. Pedestrians again filled the street. Cars again packed the road. All of sudden my mind let…",
    "author": "Dhanurdhara Swami",
    "publisher": "Waves of Devotion"
}
```

# Monday Morning Greetings 2020 #22 – Have I Become Nārada Muni and Other Pandemic Musings

Have I Become Nārada Muni?

 

A vision came. It was post quarantine New York. Pedestrians again filled the street. Cars again packed the road. All of sudden my mind let out a scream, “No!!!” What a strange reaction from this born and bred New Yorker. The peace and goodness of the last two months has indeed been spiritually intoxicating. I feared losing it. “Have you become Nārada Muni?” What a strange thought.

 

Nārada Muni gained audience with God only to have that vision quickly disappear. In desperation, he repeatedly tried to regain it, but to no avail. Finally, a divine voice from the sky revealed his defect, “You are not yet complete in service and have a material taint!” His taint? He was attached to the peace and goodness of the serene mountain place where he was meditating. How is that a blemish? Attachment even to goodness is passion and thus stains an otherwise pure consciousness. Permanent audience with God is only for those in

*viśuddha sattva*

, pure goodness, who are completely selfless and detached, and they go wherever service takes them, even New York. I hope this helps put my strange question in perspective.

 

*Some *

Sannyāsī

*!*

 

My students and friends from the Middle East were visiting me. I was being lavished with their gifts, and the bed where I was sitting was obscenely piled up with the exotic fruits, nuts and dried fruits from their country. I especially liked the pomegranates as big as softballs, the ambrosial sweet lemons, and the packages and packages of fresh saffron. A new devotee who was visiting Vṛndāvana, a red-headed actress and comedian from New York, suddenly walked in and paid obeisances in front of my bed. She then sat up, looked up at my bounty, and quipped, “Some

*sannyāsī*

!”

 

I loved it. That’s my type of city humor. Thinking back on it, I see some truth in it.

*Sannyāsa*

literally means “to practice dying”, learning the joy of shedding attachments before they are forcibly taken away. Modern

*sannyāsa*

, however, is filled with the accoutrements of opulence, such as followers and wealth. It poses a challenge to anyone entering that order, like sitting on a bed surrounded by doting followers and being showered with opulence. This is not by any means a blanket condemnation of the modern saffron soldiers. It is a caution, especially as a personal reflection on my own life.

 

In the last four months there have been challenges to the order of my world. I tend to handle things well, but when major attachments are threatened it tends to become a bit scary. But realizations also come. Why fret over that which you will lose anyway? Give it up now. Practice dying. Isn’t that what

*sannyāsa*

is for anyway? Otherwise, the red-head would be right, “Some

*sannyāsī*

!”

 

*The Heart of *

Bhakti

 

*Bhakti*

means devotion or love for God. Love manifest through relationship. The heart of chanting must be a call to understand our relationship with God. That is the specialness of the

*bhakti*

theology. Lover? Parent? Friend? O Lord, who am I? Please fully instill that sense in my heart.

 

A final thought: “Have I become Nārada Muni?” What a joke!