Satsvarupa dasa Goswami - May 27, 3:11 A.M.
I woke up feeling all right. I’m hoping I’ll be able to write today. Hoping I’ll like my life today, hoping I don’t get a headache. Waiting for Narayana to come up to help me. First things come first. First comes japa. It’s the start of every day. If I can be enthusiastic and do it well, then I’m on the way to a good day.
4:35 A.M.
- Early-morning japa log
I’ve chanted eight rounds. My head is clear. I’m wide awake. I began chanting my first four rounds at a slow pace. I did this by chanting very audibly, vibrating the sound from my chest. But then I decided I was going too slow, and I switched to a low whisper. I think I needed to do that. Perhaps the quality diminished then. Still, I paid attention to the sound vibrations and the syllables of the holy names. My timing at first was up there at eight minutes and almost nine minutes a round, but then it went down to five minutes per round. Somehow or other I was content with the yajna, because I was so alert, keeping time and happy to be accumulating. Now I must keep going with my writing about japa and then get ready to go down to the beach and continue rapid but attentive japa there. I had a nice talk with Narayana-kavaca when he came up in the morning. I told him I wanted him to be content here, and I was concerned that he be content. He had shown a few signs of being discontent, and I wanted to encourage him. He told me that basically he was all right. It is so important that he not feel sour about being here and that we enjoy our time together. He’s been very cooperative, but I know he’s had to sacrifice his schedule and his way of life in order to be up here. I hope that in time he’ll get adjusted. I sacrificed this morning also in japa. I sacrificed my good, clear chanting when I was doing it slowly and with loud sound vibration. I sacrificed time, because it was too slow. It seems you always have to sacrifice something or other and make some compromise and do some things that you don’t want to do.
- Japa essay
Japa is very important. I need to keep that in mind. At every chance, think “this is important.” Press down on the accelerator of good quality and good speed. Remember what the sastras say about the holy name and the importance of it. Never think of it as something minor or as something that you have to get out of the way. It’s the centerpiece of my sadhana. Early-morning chanting is the most important part up to breakfast. But after breakfast, when I have rounds left over, I also chant with concentration. And then in the late afternoon, I chant extra rounds, beyond sixteen. Don’t forget to do those. I’ve been taking time out for reading Sivarama Swami’s book Suddha Bhakti Cintamani. I find it very absorbing, and it’s good for me. He said that we can go back to Godhead in this lifetime. I was very encouraged to read that. So I have to spend some time in reading and not always chanting. Again, sacrifice and compromise. Use as much of your time as you can. It just shows me again that I can spend all my time in the yellow submarine and be fully engaged and preaching. Unless I improve myself and become convinced of things like going back to Godhead in this lifetime and reading deeply and chanting deeply, then I cannot be a preacher. I preach mostly in my journal, but there has to be good quality in it. I will also do other types of preaching, but this preaching comes first. The most important preaching comes when I can honestly say I’m a good chanter and that I’m putting my best time into it.
- The poem puts words in pleasing order
- but says the same thing as the prose:
- chant your rounds, my son,
- neglect them at your peril.
- The poem’s a pleasing song
- to please and entertain the readers.
- Goes to deep intuitive levels
- and comes up with sounds and moods you could not catch
- iIn ordinary prose.
- I sing this song in happy measure
- and sometimes sad
- but always song.
- It’s a little journey into inner space
- finding words unplanned
- with serendipity. I pray for poems and can never be sure
- when they will actually come. My poems are special gifts from Krishna
- written on the run.
6:53 A.M.
Down at the beach. I saw a large, shaggy raven sitting on a beach bench. I said, “Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
Narayana queried, “Poe?” I thought of telling him that the Baltimore Ravens football team was named after Poe’s poem. Edgar Allen Poe lived in Baltimore, and there is a memorial house for him with a big brass raven in the yard. But I said nothing, thinking it would just be prajalpa. Sometimes, however, it’s good to say what’s on your mind, even if it’s not Krishna conscious, because it may link to Krishna consciousness, and it’s good for friendship.
Lately I’ve been having uncontrollable laughing fits. A few weeks ago, Baladeva made up a story of a big American executive phoning a big Japanese executive but only reaching his secretary. The secretary said, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Yosito is out to runch.” Somehow this tickled me, and I burst into belly laughter for five minutes. Even after I controlled myself for a few moments, I burst into laughter again. The same thing happened again at the beach this morning. Narayana was telling me about trying to buy a good lumbar belt for his backaches. He said the medical store in Rehoboth doesn’t know much about their products. It seems they mostly get orders from doctors, but they themselves don’t know their inventory. They phoned Narayana to come in (I am laughing uncontrollably as I dictate this story). He said the belt they had for him was something that a woman would use to hold in her protruding belly. When he told the story, I burst into uncontrollable laughter and couldn’t continue my japa as we walked.
Over the years, I’ve heard of the healthy effects of laughter in combating diseases. There is the famous example of publisher Norman Cousins, who had a near-fatal disease and treated himself with massive doses of vitamin C and locking himself in a room where he watched old-time comedy movies, like Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx brothes, W. C. Fields, etc. He cured himself in two months and wrote about it in a book called Anatomy of an Illness. There are even laughing clubs around the world where people gather for therapy and stimulate laughter in different ways. So I am surprised but pleased with my recent laughing fits. It shows I’m not depressed. Of course, I don’t sit around all day laughing. I’m mostly a sober elderly fellow, but I welcome this new phenomenon.
Krishna and the gopis and gopas were always making jokes and laughing, and the subject matter wasn’t “serious.”
8:15 A.M.
“It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.” Thelonious Monk! One of the great masters of modern jazz. It’s easy to connect him to Krishna because his mood is so good. Here he’s playing an Ellington tune with just a small group, no horns. Unless there’s a swing, the music has no meaning. It’s like that with life. It’s like that in Krishna consciousness. There has to be bhakti, or it doesn’t mean anything. There can be scholarship, mode of goodness, varnasrama duties, following of sannyasa, and so on. But it doesn’t mean a thing unless there’s actually bhakti. Thelonious is playing it simply. And he’s certainly got swing. So you can’t count him out. A brilliant title by Duke Ellington, and a brilliant concept. It certainly applies to jazz. And if you take “swing” in a larger sense, it applies to classical music and all music. It has to have soul. It has to be honest music written by a poet and played by true musicians. It’s not enough if it’s a good written piece. The musicians have to swing. Thelonious’ bassist on this piece is playing with swing. He’s Oscar Petterford. Another great. Another swinger. So devotees, be sure you have the real ingredients if you want to please Krishna. Otherwise, it doesn’t mean a thing.
“Watermelon Man.” Mongo Santamaria. This is a pop hit by Herbie Hancock. It certainly has swing. Congo drums. Human voices going ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and other human sounds. It’s “Watermelon Man,” written by Mongo Santamaria, the great Latino-Afro conga man. Trumpet sounds here bring it into jazz focus. We can see cowherd boys dancing around Krishna in the woods singing, “watermelon man.” It’s a short piece, but full of juice. Herbie Hancock becomes a watermelon superstar.
“This Here,” by Cannonball Adderley, composed by Bobby Timmons, is introduced by Cannonball Adderley, who says it’s between a shout and a chant. He says it’s church music, but not like a Bach chorale. It starts off with trumpets and Cannonball’s alto. It’s not wild, uncontrolled music, as might be hinted by his introduction. But it’s got the roots, as he says, in black church music. The solo by Cannonball Adderley is full of blues and swing. I can imagine this being church music. They’re praying to God. Krishna would accept this. This here. This here love of God. This here moment of standing up in church and clapping your hands and dancing and glorifying God. This here is God music, too. His assertion that it’s God-conscious music is valid. Bach doesn’t have a monopoly on it, and neither do Bengali bhajanas. Wherever people are crying from their soul and praising God—that’s church music, too. The coronet is played by Nat Adderley, the brother of Cannonball. He’s got the feeling, too. So jazz is soul is God is swing is church is love. Next the composer of the song, Bobby Timmons, takes his cut. He’s got it, too. He plays with lots of chords and gets into the swing of the church. Raises the chorus. They all join with him, the horns and the piano and the drummer. Repetitious funk by Bobby Timmons. They join for the head, the church choir, as introduced by Cannonball, either a shout or a chant, but church music certainly.
“Brilliant Corners,” by Thelonious Monk, starts out slow and intricate, then he doubles the speed of it, so fast that they couldn’t record it the second time. They had to use the first cut twice. The tenor saxophone is Sonny Rollins. He plays the middle part slow, and it’s brilliant. A Thelonious Monk original. “Brilliant Corners” is an abstract title. Modern poetry. I remember when my sister saw the LP called Brilliant Corners, she liked the words very much. Didn’t know exactly what they meant but said it was like modern poetry. Just brilliant corners. Monk comes in and plays the head in a simple style, playing the melody the way it should be played.
Vraja is filled with brilliant corners. Wherever Krishna goes, it’s brilliant. Wherever Radha goes, it’s brilliant. Yavat, Varsana, Radha-kunda, Nandagoan, Govardhana. Sonny plays it kind of sad but brilliant. It’s a good band, and a good piece. Max Roach plays the drums—“this composition was a real killer.” Let us go see all the brilliant corners of Krishna’s pastimes, all the brilliant corners of His sastras, of His beautiful form, of His beautiful devotees.
10:30 A.M.
My Dear Lord Krishna...
You’ve got me laughing, You’ve got me crying, You’ve got me praying on my knees. You’re invisible, and beautifully present with Your peacock feather. You walk and You do not walk. You are far away but very near as well. You are within everything, and yet outside of everything. This is an explanation of Your transcendental activities as executed by Your inconceivable potencies. Contradictions prove Your inconceivable pastimes.
I accept the fact that You cannot be understood by my tiny brain. I love this fact and would not have it any other way. What worshiper would want a God who is entirely understandable? How could He be God if we could know Him fully? Yet You allow Yourself to be controlled by Your intimate devotees. Another inconceivable trait. You have a humanlike form but also a universal form comprising the entire material existence. You encourage Your devotees to love You and play with You in Your humanlike form. But sometimes You reveal to them—as You did to the residents of Vrndavana—that Your form contains the whole universe. You urge Your devotees to finish the cycle of birth and death and attain liberation with You in Goloka Vrndavana. Yet as Lord Caitanya, You prayed that all You wanted was to render the Supreme Lord causeless devotional service life after life. What is the best thing You want from us? In Bhagavad-gita, You say You want us to surrender to You and not fear. Krishna says, “I wll protect you from sinful reactions.” In the most important verse of Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Srila Rupa Gosvami declares that the topmost devotional service is to serve You with no tinge of karma, jnana, or yoga. We should be fully inclined to please You.
So I want to work toward that goal—the intent to fully please You. It is not easy, and yet Your acaryas say it can be done in one lifetime. If we develop love for You and follow Your directions to chant Your names and hear Your pastimes and perform unalloyed service, we can join You in the spiritual world after this lifetime. I pray for the purity and strength and mercy to achieve it. Surely Your mercy is required. Please accept this prayer for mercy, that I may engage myself fully and become eligible to join You and render loving service to You for eternity.
You are inconceivable but very kind, and I appeal to You to bestow Your inconceivable kindness on me. Give me the determination to become a pure devotee. I will have to work to achieve that, but You can give me the inspiration to do it.
from the yellow submarine, my bhajana kutir #84→
When it was time for the children to depart to their homes after six days of togetherness, something strange happened. Around 11 girls who participated in the summer camp could not control their tears and started weeping loudly pleading to Maharaja and teachers to extend the summer camp for few days and they would not want to go back to their homes. It was amazing for all of us as it was very unusual as normally any child away from the parents & home for few days would crave back to go home and meet up with them.
You already know that Steve from Wellington voted Rajma, the famous curried red beans with spicy gravy and panir cheese, as his favourite. It was Steve that inspired this on-going research.
By Chandan Bhatia
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