Satsvarupa dasa Goswami - May 22, 4:19 A.M.
I had a peaceful night. I woke with heavy constipation. I got relief from it by taking Fleet enema. I thought of the jester Gopal Bhand’s remark that passing stool was one of the greatest pleasures in life. Another thing to be grateful to Krishna for. Now I’m late. I’m chanting my second round at 4:20 A.M. Narayana is very kind to me.
4:46 A.M.
I’m short on time. I’ll only get four rounds done before Narayana comes up at 5:00 A.M. The rounds I chanted were hurried, not so good. But I give my life to them. I’ll surely get my quota done before the day is over. Today we’re having important guests—Kaisori, Kaulini, and Kaisori’s daughter Kalindi. It’ll be a great treat to see them again. But it will take time off from my japa and writing. I hope I’ll be able to get enough done.
- Japa essay
Japa is the art of saying Radha and Krishna’s names with devotion. What do we mean by devotion? You’re saying Their names with concentration. You practice to hear them devotionally. In the higher stages, you say them with devotion for the Supreme Persons Radha and Krishna, with thoughts of Their pastimes together throughout the eight divisions of the day. You are familiar with what They do together, and you meditate on them—the rasa dance, the swing pastimes, the pastimes in the water, amorous pastimes, etc. But in the beginning of japa, devotion can mean devotion to the practice of simply hearing the sounds of Hare, Krishna, and Rama. You know at least that this practice is the topmost and easiest yajna in Kali Yuga. You have faith that you reciprocate with Radha and Krishna when you say Their names, so you concentrate on the syllables themselves. It is best not to jump over to prematurely meditating on Radha’s and Krishna’s amorous pastimes instead of concentrating on the sound vibration. The powerful sound vibration will lead to the higher realizations.
It is best to sit erect and enunciate the names and hear them stream from your lips and teeth. Have confidence that everything will follow from that. Prabhupada occasionally made remarks that we could think of Radha’s and Krishna’a pastimes while chanting. But his main emphasis was “just hear.” Hear with attention and await for the higher revelations to come. Be humble, and the stages of seeing Krishna, meditating on His loving exchanges with Radha, thinking of His qualities, and hearing with ecstasy will naturally come.
- Japa time is treasure time,
- measured out in gold,
- done with your best intentions,
- keeping on the goal,
- Japa time is treasure time
- so don’t use it carelessly.
- Put your best effort into it
- even though distracted
- it will count in your favor.
-
7:00 A.M.
A big tractor is out on the beach smoothing the sand for the Memorial Day weekend. It’ll start coming out once a week now. It’s a pleasant, warm morning, sixty-two degrees with not a cloud in the sky. The sunshine is brilliant. I’m thinking more of the things I have to be grateful to Krishna for; this morning’s relief of constipation, this beautiful morning at the beach. There are many material plesantries given by Krishna, if you are alert to them. There are undoubtedly miseries. So how do we take them in a mood of gratitude to Krishna? We can take them as reminders that this material world is not mainly a pleasant place. The bodily and situational miseries can be taken as reminders that this is not our home. Prabhupada has described moments of happiness as being brief interludes between the constant “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Nevertheless, when the pleasant moments come, we can’t help but savor them. A wise man is cautioned not to be overjoyed by good fortune. Neither should he be depressed when bad things come his way. He should remain equiposed. The Bhagavad-gita says the temporary pleasures and miseries come from the senses, and one must learn to tolerate them without dismay. Our real life is the life of the spirit soul, and we should be attentive to his progress only.
Today should be pleasant with our friendly, enlightened visitors. I hope we will be able to keep Krishna conscious conversation. Narayana is preparing a special “Tex-Mex” lunch of tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole. After that, I’ll talk with our guests in the yellow submarine. Kaisori is an intellectual, warmhearted devotee, and I can expect a high level of conversation with her. Kaulini is so saintly that whatever she says will be uplifting to the spirits. Kaisori’s daughter Kalindi is in her twenties and maybe a little shy, but I am sure, if I ask her questions about her musical vocation, she’ll have plenty to say. Narayana will be present for propriety’s sake and will no doubt add something substantial.
I trust I’ll have time in the late afternoon to make my prayer to Krishna, although as yet I don’t know what I will write. He always welcomes me to speak, and I always have something I want to say to Him, even if it’s mostly petitions.
8:25 A.M.
This is from a CD called The House that Trane Built: The Best of Impulse Records. The first cut is “Stolen Moments,” by Oliver Nelson. I believe I already described a song called “Stolen Moments.” You can’t steal time because you can never get it back once it’s past. This is by a rather large musical group, but they’re playing straight jazz, starting off with a trumpet solo, with solid backing by the bass and drums. So it’s up to us to think about stolen moments. We should steal moments from the material activities. If you have a fifty-hour-a-week job, you should not settle for that. You should steal moments from material life, steal moments from family entanglements, steal moments from all the things that keep you from practicing Krishna consciousness. All those hours in front of the TV set and frivolous talk in gatherings. Steal them! You’d be surprised how much time you can save for Krishna if you’re just determined about it. So that’s what we should do. The stolen moments are used in the service of Krishna. A beautiful flute comes on, reminding you of Krishna’s flute. He is the one who steals the moments when He plays His flutes. He steals the hearts of the gopis, who run out of their houses to go and join Him in the forest. He steals their hearts, He steals their lives by the sound of His transcendental flute. So there is something good in thievery when it’s stealing from forgetfulness of Krishna. A calm, tenor saxophone comes on. It’s stealing more moments for sublime jazz. Jazz steals moments from the mundane doldrums, brings us into a wonderland of delight. It’s not illusion if you can listen to it in the right way, as we are doing in these prose improvisations. We’re stealing moments from our late mornings. We’re not stealing them from our japa. Oh no. But from time we might be drowsing or sleeping or just spacing out. We’re using these moments in Krishna consciousness. So if you call that stealing, then stealing is good.
Krishna Himself is the greatest thief. He used to steal butter from the gopis’ homes. When He was caught, He denied it. Krishna was an honest child. But He did cheat sometimes. He was stealing moments in the sense of stealing hearts through attraction to Himself. He made the cows stop eating grass and just stand motionless with the grass in their mouths. He let the calves steal the milk from the mothers’ udders because they were in ecstasy over Krishna’s flute. Or they stopped drinking the milk entirely, and the moments of their nourishing were stolen while they listened to His flute. Let everything be stolen and placed at the lotus feet of Krishna.
“A La Mode,” by Art Blakey. This is upbeat. With a la mode, we usually think of apple pie with ice cream, some delightful desert. This is certainly delightful music, with Art Blakey’s group playing together fast. They’ve got a head that they play first before they break into solos. The drummer’s keeping excellent time, hitting the stick on every four measures in addition to his regular beats. Then comes the tenor saxophonist, wailing a la mode. He’s backed up by little flurries by the rest of the group as he carries the solo alone. Then comes a trumpet perking, keeping the fast beat sustained by the bassist and Art Blakey himself, the greatest of drummers. They’re bringing this one home all the way. No time for relaxation. This album is typical of the Impulse recordings. The tenor sax is hardworking, and so is the trumpet. Charles Mingus drove it home. Just think of a man in a cafeteria having apple pie a la mode after a small sandwich. Think of all the wonderful meals that Krishna enjoys int he spiritual world, the best sweets. And you can get that even in the material world at Krishna conscious temples. Food offered to Krishna. A trombone plays with Blakey’s stick keeping metronomic time behind. It’s hard bop, upbeat, crashing cymbals, like playing in the ocean surf on a hot summer day. A tasteful piano solo. Blakey continues to keep the time with one click for every four beats, along with additional pedal for every beat. He’s like two drummers playing at once. Now the head again. Thank You, Krishna, for preserving this record in its entirety, and thank You for letting us enjoy it. All music comes from You, and all inspiration, and these talented musicians get their vibhuti, special empowerment, from You. And they give it back to You and to all of us, so we’re thankful, very thankful for this upbeat tune, “A La Mode.” It fades out in a tasteful way.
“Theme for Lester Young,” aka “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” by Charles Mingus. This is a solemn ballad, an elegy for the poetic master tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Charles Mingus wrote it the night that he heard Lester Young had passed away. Mingus was playing at the Half Note, and after he heard of Young’s death, he went home that night and wrote the tune. It’s a sad, funereal march. But it’s graceful, not depressing. It’s saying goodbye to a great saint. Saint? Well, maybe Lester Young wasn’t a saint, but he was one of the greatest poetic tenor saxophone players of his day, and we can call him a “saint” for that. A saint in music. He played in Count Basey’s group and created a whole group of disciples, among them Stan Getz. After the head, there’s an improvisation by a tender tenor saxophonist crying and moaning for the disappearance of the beloved one. He’ll be no more among us, that man who wore the porkpie hat. The man who used to give out names to jazz musicians. He gave the name Lady Day to Billie Holiday. He coined the word “bread” for “money, and he gave the name Sweets to Sweets Edison. He was a real hipster. He was a poet of the tenor saxophone, not playing hard and raucous but playing tenderly. And that’s how a tribute to him should be played, which they do on this track. Charles Mingus had it right in his theme for Lester Young. How nice that he went home that night, his mind filled with the loss of Prez (a name for Lester Young), and wrote him a goodbye song, wrote the whole world a goodbye song for Lester Young, who would be missed. No more hearing his sax except on some not-so-great-quality recordings. But his memory lives on, and his disciples live on. And love for Lester Young will never end. The head is very sweet and melodious, and that’s the inspiration that Mingus carried in his head as he went home after leaving the Half Note and wrote it down in musical notes, to be played by many musicians afterwards, including Mingus himself.
“A Love Supreme, Part 1, Acknowledgment.” This is the beginning of the suite written by John Coltrane. The liner notes he wrote for this are a prayer to God. He told how he overcame drug addiction by having an experience of God, which enabled him to stop the habit. From then on, he became a disciple of God. At the end of his life, he said that in the next seven years of his life he wished to become a saint. “Acknowledgment,” the first part of “A Love Supreme,” starts out slowly with John Coltrane playing a call, a cry to God. He’s like a preacher starting in a temperate tone. Coltrane is famous for his call, his cry. This is a written part, but he plays it with improvisation also. Nothing he ever did was ordinary. It repeats itself and climbs in the meters. Sometimes he cries in a very high register. He sounds like a human voice, like a preacher in the pulpit. Like a saintly man. Then he drops to a lower note and rolls it over and over, his prayer, his acknowledgment of God. “A Love Supreme” is a love of God. He says that God is everything. God is the wind and the rain and the sun. He’s everything in nature, He’s everything in creation, everything comes from Him. He calls out to Him, his Beloved. He wants to know Him better. With his tenor saxophone, he climbs and climbs and reaches higher realms of spirit. Then his group of men start to chant, with their human voices, “a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme....” This is very surprising and touching on a jazz album to hear masculine voices praying like monks the words “a love supreme.” He keeps repeating the same “words” on the tenor saxophone, “a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme.” It’s interesting how he inverts the words. Instead of “a supreme love,” he says “a love supreme.” His artistry. A love supreme, a love supreme. Their voices chanting together. They chant and drop it one measure and say it some more. Their voices sound tender and reverent. Then McCoy Tyner comes on for a tasteful piano solo. And then Jimmy Garrison stops all the music and plays his solo bass. Everyone stops to listen and hold their breath. He stops the rhythm and prays his own prayer.
“Los Olvidados.” This is Spanish for I don’t know what, by Archie Shepp. He plays with his group and his own screaching, unique style. He’s been known to be an angry man, involved in civil rights. Fighting for black rights. But most of all, he’s a musician. “Los Olvidados” has a Latin air to it. It starts and stops in eccentric divisions and artful segments. A drum introduction leads to the group’s playing more Latin music. It’s a pleasant piece, not one of anger. A trumpet solo. Krishna has given him talent, and they’re playing it strongly for Him. It’s a serious piece of music, not fooling around but played with grace and drive. The trumpets turns to the mute, and the music becomes more solemn. I think of Krishna and His varieties. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes sad, sometimes happy. Krishna’s playing all the notes through Archie Shepp. It seems to wander. It makes you wonder. Where are they going? They take us on a trip. Then suddenly Archie Shepp steps up and plays his angry tenor riffs. He plays with great power, and behind him, the group gathers and ornaments his playing. He’s a unique artist. One of Krishna’s special men, full of uniqueness and individuality. He cries out. He moans. He’s got something to say that’s not so happy, but he makes it beautiful. That’s the blues.
11:00 A.M.
- My Dear Srila Prabhupada...
I would like to thank you with feelings of gratitude for the favors that you have granted me in this lifetime and for events that have happened that have turned out auspicious.
I would like to thank you for saving me from being a literary writer. This was my great desire and vocation before I met you. I was prepared to be a writer, whether successful or a failure, for the rest of my life with full dedication. I remember when I joined the Krishna consciousness movement, I visited The Atlantic Monthly offices in Boston and asked them how I could have an article about Krishna consciousness accepted. They told me they would not print an article about the movement per se as coverage of a religion. They said the only way I could get an article printed was if I became a recognized writer with literary contributions in general and then wrote an article about Krishna consciousness. When they told me that, I realized I did not want to take the path of trying to become a literary writer but wanted to become a Krishna conscious writer, even if it meant not being printed in The Atlantic Monthly or some other publication. I would rather write for Back to Godhead magazine and the BBT, even though they were relatively small. I would prefer to write for Krishna rather than to be my own writer. So I’m grateful you saved me from that. In more recent years, I have tried being a writer with my own voice, not just a mouthpiece for ISKCON. But I have dovetailed it so that it is writing in Krishna consciousness, but writing with my own developed talent. This allowed me freedom for the vocation that I hankered for but kept me safe within the parampara.
I would like to thank you for not letting me fall in love with a woman and marrying her for life. You arranged an ISKCON marriage for me in 1968, but it was an unsuitable match, and so it was easy for you to release me from it when you gave me permission to take sannyasa in 1972, just a few years after my marriage. And apart from that ISKCON-arranged marriage, you saved me from ever falling in love with a woman in my youth and becoming captured in a marriage for life. And you saved me from becoming a gigolo or debauch who chases women. I somehow did not have what it took to chase after women, being too shy and reserved.
Although this may sound strange, I would like to thank you for some of the LSD trips I took in the early 1960s. Although they were destructive and risky, they did open me to the possibilities of a nonmaterial existence and consciousness expanded beyond the normal middle-class American outlook. Those trips, combined with reading Eastern literature such as the Upanisads and the Bhagavad-gita, prepared me for being open to you when I met you in 1966.
I am grateful to you that I was living in the Lower East Side of New York City in 1966 when you moved in to 26 2nd Avenue. Your storefront was a place that I passed daily on my way from the welfare office home to lunch, and so I could not miss it. The little sign in the window inviting us to classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday was sufficient to lure me in, and the rest was history.
I want to thank you for allowing me to join you at the very beginning of your mission. I was really able to come in on the ground floor of the movement and be given opportunities for leadership and responsibility. By your purity and charisma, I became very obedient and faithful to you. In return, you reciprocated with me and trusted me and gave me posts of responsibility, such as the first secretary of ISKCON and temple president in Boston.
This giving of responsibility continued throughout my career in ISKCON. You sent me to Boston to be temple president, awarded me sannyasa in 1972 and placed me as one of the original members of the Governing Body Commission. There were so many more qualified people present, but you chose me for these posts, and the austerity of trying to fulfill them helped me advance very much in Krishna consciousness. I am also thankful that during my years on the GBC, you allowed me to take many expanded posts as GBC secretary for various areas of the world.
I am grateful that when a vacancy became open in the editorship of Back to Godhead magazine, you accepted my volunteering to take over as editor. You then allowed me to publish many articles and essays in Back to Godhead magazine. Many times you praised them.
I’m grateful that I was introduced to India in your company. I first went to join you in 1973 to spend a month as a representative GBC to accompany you. You took care of me and sheltered me from the culture shock of India. It was wonderful being with you in that atmosphere. I could not have had a better introduction. I then went again with you when you gave me the great honor of calling me to be your personal servant in 1974. I traveled with you to Hawaii, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and then to India—Vrndavana, Bombay and Calcutta. During this time, you let me type letters for you and cook for you and massage you daily. I traveled around the world with you, sometimes being your only companion. Eventually it became too intense for me to be your servant, and I wanted to serve more independently. At first you did not let me go, but then you let me go to do another service, which you came to value very much.
I want to thank you for this tolerance on this part so that I did not commit an offense. I became the leader of the brahmacari library party and traveled throughout the United States, placing books in universities. You repeatedly praised and respected this work as being very important. I am grateful that you chose me as one of eleven persons to be initiating gurus and initiate on your behalf during your presence when you were too ill to initiate anymore. I considered it a great honor to be chosen out of dozens of likely leaders. You really touched my heart by singling me out.
I am grateful that I was present for your disappearance from this earth. Several times during 1977 when you were very ill, I came to be with you in India and was finally there with you in your very last days, including the last day, when I stood by your bedside all day and witnessed your auspicious disappearance from the body. I’m grateful that you made suggestions that I should be the one to write your biography and that this was unanimously approved by the GBC. I completed it in five years with a team of devotees. It has become a successful biography, translated and read second only to your own books, helping to influence people to come to Krishna consciousness.
These statements of gratitude may sound like self-praises on my part, but I need to be specific in thanking you for the things you have given me to show that you have showered success on my career. I do not count it as credit for my own prowess but as favors from you, which you began at the very beginning of our relationship, when you gave me the assignment to post the titles of the lectures you would give on the sign board on the window at 26 2nd Avenue.
I’ve made mistakes in your service, especially after your disappearance. I was part of a GBC “conspiracy” that kept only eleven persons as gurus for nine years and arranged that our Godbrothers should look up to us as their guru. I also had a disastrous falldown in the early years of 2000s, for which I was reprimanded by the GBC and for which my reputation has suffered seriously. But I believe you have forgiven me for these indiscretions, and I am grateful for your forgiveness. Again, I have written too much here, so I will bring it to an end. But thank you for all the things I have not mentioned and for all things you are continuing to give me now and in the future in my attempt to make spiritual progress under your direction.
from the yellow submarine, my bhajana kutir #79→
Itt ülök a Bhakta-sangán, a bhakta kongresszuson. Több prezentációt tekinthetünk meg.
Last updated:
Facebook Group
Get updates via
twitter
Subscribe via
rss
![[RSS 2.0 Feed]](images/rss20.png){kind=small}