Satsvarupa dasa Goswami - May 21, 4:30 A.M.
I slept well all night, and actually overslept. I didn’t get up until 4:15 A.M. My head is clear, but my morning is off to a very late start.
- Japa essay
Japa is the quiet prayer. You say it loud enough so you can hear it, but it’s mostly for yourself. Radha and Krishna can hear you. They’re close by, so you don’t have to shout. But They’re listening carefully, so you pronounce with great care. Put your heart into it. Hear me, Lord. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Over and over, the thirty-two syllables are repeated. You bear down on them like a baseball pitcher who’s come in to save the game. The pressure is on you to strike them out. You keep your composure, fast but not too fast. Pace yourself. It’s also mental. It’s not just throwing out the names. It’s saying them so you can hear them and Krishna can hear them.
Prabhupada taught us how to chant. Don’t touch the beads with the index finger, use your thumb and third finger and rub the beads between them. The index finger pokes through the hole at the side of the bead bag. You rub and rub. Sometimes you rub a blister. Come to the end of the circle of the beads and then stop at the head bead and start back. Keep careful to count so you know how many you’ve said. Don’t be slack in that. Don’t chant on the head bead but stop just before it and then head back. Head back quickly. At first, you’ve only done a few, but then you’re one third through, then one half through, then two thirds through, then you’re almost through again. Another round. You’re at the head bead again, and you turn back and go the other direction. Don’t think of it just as a mechanical thing. You’re going and coming are just your routine. The main thing is to get deeper into the meditation on the holy names. Deeper and deeper, hearing the sound. Gradually you begin to awaken to the fact that the name is Krishna, and all you have to do is say it clearly. It’s easier than you thought. You increase your concentration, and you pick up speed. Other thoughts leave you. Drowsiness leaves you. Your head is clear. You’re chanting successfully, by Krishna’s grace. More and more, you accumulate the rounds, and more and more you hear them in your mind. This is how to chant successfully.
- Late for chanting.
- Have to make it up later.
- Gets you irritated
- but as long as you do them
- there’s no harm done.
- The main thing is time spent
- absorbed in harinama
- throughout the twenty-four hours
- of a day well spent.
7:00 A.M.
Narayana-kavaca and I are having trouble communicating on the walkie-talkie. He hears me as soon as I speak, but I cannot hear his answer. After repeating my message about four times, I finally hear him. Sometimes his voice is irritated: “I’m coming!” He apologized to me for sounding irritated and made an analogy to japa. He wondered how Krishna feels if we think He is not reciprocating and we chant irritably. I said that I thought Krishna would sympathize that our irritability is with our own self and not with Him, and yet it is not a good quality of chanting. We will try to fix our radio so that this doesn’t keep happening.
The beach is calm, and the ocean has no waves. The temperature is warm, and the sun is shining brightly. Narayana got me a lumbar belt and an ankle brace and improved my walking so that I was able to do two brisk laps. My legs are still rubbery, but if we can borrow Sastra’s stationary bicycle, I’m hoping the exercise will improve that defect.
I should not be so anxious about being so far behind in my rounds due to rising late. Otherwise, I will spoil the rounds by trying to rush them. Be confident I have enough time in the day to do all my duties. It is probably even good to sleep later.
For so many years, I used to rise at midnight after four hours’ sleep and catch an hour nap later in the day. I’m not able or inclined to try that routine again. It is too much stress, and my doctor wants me to get seven hours of ininterrupted sleep. He feels it is an important factor in the chronic headaches, but I am too stubborn to give up early rising and early chanting. I feel the early-morning japa log is a good service to devotees, and some of them told me how it helped them in their own struggles to chant early.
The benefit of spiritual duties and the brahma-muhurta hour (an hour and a half before sunrise) is emphasized in the scriptures. It is also experienced by any devotee who is able to chant at that peaceful hour of the day. So I’m going to try continuing “early to bed and early to rise,” even if it creates a strain on the body.
8:20 A.M.
“Maiden Voyage.” This is Herbie Hancock, with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. It is all about sailing to thet sea in a sailboat. The maiden voyage is the exciting one, although for the Titanic, it was the tragic one. You have to work out all the bugs on the first voyage. This is Herbie Hancock in his peak of creativity, before he started playing Fusion. The other instrumentalists are also excelling. You can see the sailboat making good speed on the cover of the CD. It’s a small boat, and a man is sitting in the stern, the sail fully extended. A small boat breezing out to sea.
Krishna used to take the gopis out in a boat on the Yamuna. He would play tricks on them, telling them that the boat was going to sink unless they took off their jewelry and heavy clothing and threw off all the pots of yogurt that they were carrying. Then they finally discovered He was Krishna and not just an ordinary boatman, and they became ecstatic. Krishna was such a trickster. But they loved it. His voyage was the voyage of maidens, the cowherd maidens. But He took them many times across the Yamuna, and they loved it every time. Sometimes He said that a storm was coming, and sometimes He told them that the boat could not move bacause it was too heavy. He tried all kinds of tricks to get them to become more intimate with Him, and He always succeeded. One time He parted the water, like the Yellow Sea in the Bible, and they crossed without any effort.
This is nice music, played by a competent group. Herbie Hancock tinkles his melodies with delicacy and expertise. He was one of the greatest pianists. He went through several careers, trying out different styles of music, but jazz purists prefer it when he plays straight jazz. One should not sell out to fads of what is commercial. One should stick to one’s vocation and purity. Experimentation is all right if it’s done to try to reach a higher stage of perfection, not to try to make more money or to capture a wider public. The maiden voyage sounds very peaceful. It doesn’t sound like there’s a terrible storm coming. The sail is filled out. A beautiful breeze is carrying them swiftly through the water. You can almost hear the music in the boat itself. And the music made by the musicians is like the sailboat. The maiden voyage was successful, and everyone is happy. It’s done for the pleasure of Krishna in the topmost abode.
“The Eye of the Hurricane.” This one is more upbeat, with the danger of a storm. They’re playing faster, just as the waves are moving faster, splashing against the prow of the boat. Is the little boat imperiled at sea? Are these sailors expert enough? The eye of the hurricane is a place where it’s peaceful, but it’s surrounded by the worst part of the storm. So when you’re in the eye of the hurricane, you’re in danger. Freddie Hubbard plays dangerous, quick improvisation, and Tony Williams smashes the drums. It’s definitely different from the first maiden voyage. You can’t expect smooth sailing every time, not in this material world. Sometimes you may start out on a mild day and suddenly a storm will rise, with black clouds in the sky and heavy rains. Herbie Hancock blurs his notes to create an effect of storm. He plays the notes very quickly to indicate the winds. George Coleman on tenor saxophone picks up the same kind of tense beat and improvises. When Vasudeva took Krishna across the Yamuna, there was a storm. At one point, he dropped baby Krishna. The baby fell into the water, but Mother Yamuna picked him up and gave Him back to Vasudeva. There was a jackal in the water, who observed it. There was no real danger for Krishna. It was just a pastime because Mother Yamuna wanted to hold Krishna in her arms. Then there was a parting of the waters, and Vasudeva was able to walk peacefully through the sea, which wasn’t even over his head, and he carried Krishna to the other side of the Yamuna to Gokula, where he delivered Him to Yasoda. Yasoda had actually given birth to Krishna, and this Krishna that Vasudeva carried merged into Krishna born of Yasoda. It was a dangerous venture—escaping from the prison, becoming free from the prison chains, delivering the baby, and then returning to the prison without being detected, carrying the baby girl, Krishna’s sister Subhadra. Then Subhadra survived the attempt to kill her by Kamsa. That was certainly the eye of the hurricane—everything peaceful, but full of danger. Kamsa did not know. Durga, Krishna’s sister, rose in the sky and said to him, “You rascal, you do not know that the baby you’re attempting to kill has already been born somewhere in this world.” Kamsa was frightened to death, knowing that his death was at hand, and he begged forgiveness, at least for the time being. So the eye of the hurricane is a peaceful spot in the midst of the storm, and we can always expect Krishna to bring us there and bring us to safety out of the hurricane itself. Just take shelter in the Lord, and we can get through the worst storms.
“Little One.” This one starts out peacefully, emphasizing that the boat is a little one. It may be on a big sea, but the sea is calm, and the boat is safe. We are all little ones protected by Krishna. The devotee is a little one, and Krishna is the great one. The little one takes shelter of the great one, and he is protected. Krishna promises in Bhagavad-gita, “Arjuna, be assured that My devotee will never perish.” So although the boat appears fragile and small, the waters are calm, and a little boat—a boat no bigger than Hemingway’s rowboat in The Old Man and the Sea, which survives going way out to see on a dangerous mission—the instrumentalists emphasize that all is safe by playing calm improvisations from their own brains and souls. They play blues. They wail, but in an unfrenetic way. In fact, they play in a calm way, but with lots of notes and lots of invention. Even a calm voyage is not a dull one when you are the little one in the protection of Krishna’s boat. It is said in the Bhagavatam that Krishna takes us in a boat across the ocean of birth and death, and then He brings the boat back to the shore again. Krishna’s boat, even though small, is safer than the greatest ocean liner or aircraft carrier. It’s safer because it’s not open to the ravages of the material waves. It can ride the waves. When Krishna gives protection, no one can kill. And when Krishna wants to kill, no one can save. It is touching to see the little one floating peacefully at sea, almost visibly protected by the hand of Krishna. This whole CD is about boats going to sea and their relationship with Krishna. Sailors are brave to attempt a confrontation with the mighty ocean. The ocean can smash any boat to pieces in moments, just like it sunk the Titanic in forty minutes. Nothing is more powerful than Krishna’s ocean, especially when heavy winds are up or when it is being attacked by cannons by other ships. Being a sailor is a perilous life. My father used to wear a tattoo on his shoulder showing a picture of a ship sinking at sea. Under were inscribed the words, “A Sailor’s Grave.” Davy Jones’ locker. It’s not the normal place for a human being to be. He belongs on dry land, where his feet are firm. Being at sea in a boat, no matter how big, is perilous and not his usual place. But even a little one floats peacefully on a calm day under Krishna’s protection. The Herbie Hancock outfit plays it peacefully, and you feel safe on an ocean voyage, even in deep water. You feel assured that you will reach the shore again, without any great danger. You sense the mild breezes will prevail and that Krishna will take you back home. Sailors who go out in little ones are especially brave.
“Survival of the Fittest.” Like the song, “The Eye of the Hurricane,” this song evokes the danger of life at sea. Who will sail safely back to port, and who will sink? It is a question of survival of the fittest. The boats that are built best, the sailors that can maneuver the best will make it. Others will sink. Of course, it is up to the storm itself, Krishna’s storm. The “fittest” is the one that Krishna allows to sail and not sink.
In human life, the fittest who survive are those who take to Krishna consciousness and follow the rules of bhakti yoga. Being fit means to avoid sinful activities. Krishna says that if you think of Him at the time of death, you will go to Him. If you know Him, the reasons for His appearance in the world and the nature of His activities, then you won’t have to come back again to another perilous voyage, but you’ll return to His safe ocean of the spiritual world. The ocean of the spiritual world never takes ships down to the bottom of the ocean. All ships are safe there. They go on joyrides in beautifully shaped boats and ships, and they are all fit to survive. All sailing there is joyrides. Some of the ships are shaped like swans, and they are propelled by winds and wings and mysterious methods of subtle yoga. They are not steamships or nuclear ships. They don’t sink. They are the fittest. They’re under Krishna’s protection.
In the material world, the fittest ship may be a well-built schooner, a well-built cruiser, and it bravely rides the waves. But no matter how fit the ship is built, a storm may come which will dash it to pieces. This has happened thousands of times at sea to doughty sailors and their captains. The beaches of the world are littered with the goods of ships that have crashed on the rocks, and the bottom of the sea is littered with the remains of bones of sailors who have drowned. So survival of the fittest is a relative term because no one is completely fit in this material world. There are storms which will overcome any ship.
Only in the spiritual world is there safe sailing, joyful sailing. Krishna rides in boats with the gopis and plays the boatman using a pole to push the boat along. He imitates peril and convinces the gopis that they must act according to His instructions if they wish to be saved. The survival of the fittest in this case means that they have to be completely surrendered to Him and act under His instructions. They do so willingly, and out of fear also, and Krishna saves them. When He reveals Himself as actually Krishna and not a boatman, they are delighted.
The survival of the fittest means the pure devotee. No one’s material body survives. Even the devotee has to perish in his material body. But his spirit soul takes another spiritual body. His body becomes transformed at death, and he goes to a Vaikuntha planet or Goloka Vrndavana, completely fit to live for sat, cit, ananda, eternity, bliss and knowledge with Krishna. That is the real survival of the fittest. Otherwise, there is no protection, only the potential dangers of the material ocean, which is perilous even to the greatest ships.
In the middle of the piece, Herbie Hancock plays a myseterious solo, with experimental notes full of the danger of being at sea, and Tony Williams backs him up with smashes on the drums. It’s not predictable. It’s not a chartered course, like music written on a sheet that you can just follow. Sometimes it’s beyond the written music and beyond even expert improvisation. It throws the ship to the bottom of the ocean. There is no fittest except the soul surrendered to Krishna.
“Dolphin Dance.” The dolphins are famous for their dancing at sea. They playfully and intelligently sail near human beings in their boats. They surface and dive. They like to play. Sailors usually don’t kill them. They are too beautiful to harm. They are intelligent mammals. They are like devotees who are meant to survive ocean waters and not attack the humans. They are the most playful of fish. They are big and beautiful. They have large fins on the top of their bodies, which can be seen from a distance, but they are not the dangerous sharks. They are the friendly folk of the sea. It’s called “Dolphin Dance” because they like to dance. Many times schools of dolphins will assemble, dozens of them, and dance around a few ships. They will even nudge ships and leap out of the water near the passengers. They thrill the passengers, and even frighten them by their familiarity. But they intend no harm. The dolphins are like the friendliest devotees, who are sometimes awesome and frightening by their power but who mean no harm. Sometimes when Krishna appears before the devotee, the devotee is full of fright. Dhruva Maharaja was so frightened by Visnu that he didn’t know what to say and fell at His feet. But Visnu touched him with His conch, and Dhruva regained his composure and made beautiful prayers. People have written prayers and poems to the dolphins. Some people learn to swim with the dolphins and play with them underwater. The dolphins are open to this reciprocation. This is the kind of reciprocation that can take place between God and the living entity. They can dance together. The bigger, more powerful dolphin will play with the devotee and teach him not to be afraid. Come and play with me, he will say. And the daring, loving devotee will do so. Sometimes they even ride the backs of the dolphins in a rare, intimate exchange. There are lovers of dolphins who want to protect them at all costs from scavengers or pirates. And the dolphins should be protected because they are the dancers of the sea. They are like devotees of Krishna—friendly, fearless, and assuring. They dolphins’ dance is not choreographed. It is a free dance, and yet it appears to be beautifully arranged, as they dive up in great numbers and circle boats, thrilling the passengers, who say that it is the greatest experience of their lives to come close to the dolphins and even swim with them. The dolphins’ dance is one of the most thrilling experiences of the world. Herbie Hancock tries to imitate it by playing lovely chords and melodies, but he cannot equal the sleek leaps and dives of the actual mammals. Nevertheless, his attempt is laudable and musical. He plays it lyrically to show the sweet, diving, nonthreatening dance that these dolphins perform. They even seem to like to find the humans and come near them and play with them in a domesticated way. It reminds us of Krishna and His devotees. Krishna loves to find His devotees and come near them and play with them, and if they’re brave enough, they join Him in the water.
10:00 A.M.
- My Dear Lord Krishna...
Yesterday I wrote a prayer expressing my gratitude for all the wonderful gifts you have given me. I emphasized the big things—Your connecting me to Srila Prabhupada, Your placing me in the human form of life with a chance to go back to Godhead, Your instructing me in the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra, whereby I can clear myself of sins and develop love of God. I would like to state some more thanks to You today, and maybe state some more particular, smaller things, for which I am grateful. I will write things freely, and I hope that I do not mention things which are not actually helpful to me. If I do mention things that are maya, please disregard them and don’t accept them as petitions from me. I only want from You what is best for me. But I am foolish, and sometimes I’m grateful for things for which I should not be grateful.
I thank You for the early-morning ventures to Lewes Beach, where we sit in the car and chant and then go out and take a walk. This is my substitute for going to Vrndavana dhama. I keep in mind Prabhupada’s purport in Bhagavad-gita that some people say one has to live in a holy town like Vrndavana, but actually anywhere in the world is as good as Vrndavana if you think of Krishna. The early-morning ventures to Lewes Beach are sublime. They are good times to concentrate on quality chanting. As for chanting, the even better gift is the early-morning chanting in my room. As soon as I get up until 5:00 A.M., when Narayana comes up to get me. Sometimes, like this morning, I oversleep and miss that great opportunity. But I’m grateful to You when I can chant eight solid rounds in the morning before starting my morning ablutions.
I thank You (through Your devotee Sastra) for letting me live in the yellow submarine, my bhajana-kutir. It is an ideal place of solitude and quiet where I get my daily sadhana work completed, where I can rest in peace. It is also a place I share with very close friends, whose association enlivens me.
I thank You for continuing to allow me to write in my journal every day. I know it is not something I can take for granted. Yet every day You allow me to pray, to write prose poems, to write a japa log, to reach numbers of people on the website. Without this gift, my lift would be considerably drier and emptier. I take it as a gift from You. Thank You very much.
I thank You for life itself. As I grow older, I am suffering more bodily pains, and that is bound to increase. But my joy for life seems to be increasing also. Just to be able to be alive in this body—to sleep and eat and rest and be active and see the pretty flowers and breathe the fresh air of Delaware and see the ocean every day and the sky and take short car rides and listen to jazz—all these things are sources of joy. Life is a mixed blessing. It is filled with birth, death, disease and old age. So, as You say, it is not a happy place. It is not a happy situation. And yet, while living in this body and performing activities of happy place. It is not a happy situation. And yet, while living in this body an dperforming activities of yukta-vairagya—carrying out even material activities in the Your service in renunciation—I feel content and happy. The little happy things in life all come from You and make material life bearable. To have joie de vivre is in itself not an illusion. To thank You for the things You have put into this material world, which are lovely, which are reflections of the spiritual world, is, I think, part of being Krishna conscious. Cloud formations, blue or dark skies, sunshine or rain, thunder, lunchtime conversations, hearing readings from Brhad-bhagavatamrta—all these daily experiences are sources of happiness and gifts from You. One time in 1966 at 26 2nd Ave., Hayagriva referred to this world as a rotten place. Prabhupada corrected him and said this world was not rotten because Krishna had come here and lived here, and so it was a blessed planet. Certain places on this earth, especially in India, are holy places because You actually enacted Your patimes there. But also the many temples of ISKCON are transcendental abodes and can be considered as good as Vrndavana. And wherever Vaisnavas gather and perform kirtana and talk about You and live in consciousness of You are not rotten places but blessed places. I thank You for letting me take advantage of this blessed nature of the planet earth. Even in Kali Yuga, the earth can be a happy place wherever the chanting of Hare Krishna takes place.
I must not forget to thank You for all the events that took place in my life before I met Swami Bhaktivedanta. Because all those events were stepping stones for reaching the path of bhakti-marga. I lived with my parents for eight years in Queens. They raised me to the best of their ability to be a nice boy. The thirteen years we lived in our own house in a suburb of Staten Island were relatively peaceful—these are all things to be grateful for. My parents care for me is something I’m grateful for. For that, I thank You, because it comes as my past karma, overseen by You and Your material energy. And I thank you for the hard times. My two years of active service in the navy hardened me into a person who was able to accept things that were difficult. This prepared me for a life in which I would have to accept repeated unfavorable circumstances and endure them. The frivolous but fun boyhood years were, as Prahlada Maharaja describes, a waste of time. I did not suffer from material want or parental or family cruelty. I am glad I escaped the worst of it. My years as a budding intellectual in college were sources of satisfaction for me, although in the end, they proved to be illusion. While I lived them, I enjoyed pretension of being an intellectual and reading the world classics of literature. This at least prepared me for a taste for scholarship, which I later dovetailed in reading Srimad-Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita. At least I learned how to read and write, which were the most important tools of my material education. And I did well at it, also, by Your grace. I cannot speak favorably of my years of vice, such as my indulgence in recreational drugs and taking up life with a woman. I don’t know what exactly to say about them, except that at the time, they seemed enjoyable and part of the cutting edge of life in my generation. I think the real gratitude I can express is that I did not die during those years, because they were very perilous. I risked being killed living in dangerous neighborhoods of New York City, and I risked becoming addicted to drugs or becoming a madman by experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs. And I escaped living with a woman by finding it ultimately distasteful. So I think You for giving me the experience of shortlived pleasures in those areas. By my own experience, I became disillusioned and did not want any of it any longer. I then turned to a life in which I sought seclusion and took to writing as my vocation. Trying to live a life of a writer was the state I was in when I met Swamiji. I followed writing as a kind of religion, although, unfortunately, I rejected religious theologies. Somehow I was ready to dedicate myself to Krishna consciousness when it came along. As for religion, in my earliest years, my mother did imbue in me a sense of love for Jesus Christ and his associates.
There are many, many more things I could express my gratitude for, but this essay has become too long already, and I should stop it. But on another occasion, I may continue my descriptions of things I am grateful to You for. I pray always that You may make me feel grateful and want to reciprocate with Your blessings.
from the yellow submarine, my bhajana kutir #78→
Most kaptam egy e-mailt a Ratha-yatráról, más néven a Szekérfesztiválról. Gondoltam, érdekel benneteket is.
Dear Devotees,
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