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EKEHA KURU-NANDANA

Their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus.. BG 2.41

EKEHA KURU-NANDANA

Their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus.. BG 2.41

Purpose: Our aim is one, when our sole target is the supreme intelligence of Srila Prabhupada. To deviate from his supreme intelligence and to take shelter of any of the many-branched paths of the Bahu-Sakha of multifarious philosophies, is to lose our resolute aim and intelligence and lose everything. As Srila Prabhupada writes in this purport, "the highest perfection of life is called vyavasayatmika intelligence." My pranams are to him, our Gurudeva and Jagat-guru of the world.

I write this for my own purification, trying to preach to myself and also trying to engage in the loving exchange of revealing my mind to godbrother/sisters. Some may like it, and some may not, so hopefully some approval is there from the Vaisnavas. Srila Prabhupada wanted us to write our realizations even if they are never published. This is a humble attempt.

pending articles-  Fooled again, The Size of God,  The Odyssey of the Syamantaka Jewel,  Isa’s Dream   

* Too late for summer of love (a 60's tale)

* Harinam experience

* Ten or twenty years later

* Two chance meetings 

* A world in containment

* Maha borrower

* Giant within

Too late for the summer of love

[a 60's tale]

[maha-realizations in retrospection]

This is an old story about lessons from the material energy. It’s about the futility of finding paradise in the kingdom of Maya - Devi-dhama. Some of you may remember where you were in the summer of 1967?

This is a story from the 60’s, which is valuable for retrospective realizations, therefore worthy for telling. Looking back on it all, we can understand clearly that there’s no garden of Eden in this material world, no permanent paradise or lasting peace, only temporary and illusory oasis’s in the parched hot sands of material existence. We may find a situation that seems nice for a while, but it’s just a mirage in the desert. Forget the summer of love and any revolution of love and peace in this world, for the demons will make sure it never happens. Actually this is the arrangement of Maya, Krishna’s external energy, to always put the sand into the sweet-rice, to always keep that dangling carrot out there barely brushing our fingertips, but always out of reach.

So, it was the summer of 1967, summer of love, when we were young and starry-eyed, and thought we were all part of a brand new world, right there in Kansas. All my friends and I thought we seemed to be in this great revolution of the 60’s. We were going to make the world peaceful and happy, stop war, all that stuff. We tuned into the “strange vibrations, all across the nation.” This “vibration” was the Hare Krishna maha-mantra being chanted coast to coast from Hare Krishna devotees in New York and San Fransico. Scott McKenzie was beckoning us to come to San Francisco with “flowers in our hair.” This was the summer Johnny Rivers sung about, “everybody kept playing Sgt Peppers lonely hearts club band…”

So we had this apartment in Wichita KS, which turned out to be a real “art happening.” All my friends were artists and poets. I and one friend got this old Victorian house apartment, in which all my friends came over and hung paintings on the wall, and we had all our artsy nick-naks on the fireplace mantle and window sills, hanging from strings. We painted the walls red and the ceiling black and we had this huge strobe light and black lights, and hung this snoopy-like model airplane from the ceiling which swung back and forth with the strobe light flashing, very “happening.” We had speakers around the ceiling belting out Hendrix and Cohen and Dylan and Donavan, etc. All this fantastic music was coming out from the west coast and England, and we reveled in sound, and in the light show and artsy spectacle. And so, in retrospect, we saw that it was our kaleidoscope euphoric heaven on earth, [we thought], we were looking for the eternal ecstasy of Krishna consciousness but since we hadn’t contacted the devotees yet, we had to settle for the asat euphoria of the 60’s.

That summer, Allen Ginsberg came to town, it was a happening at a bohemian coffee shop in downtown Wichita. It was then that he wrote his “Wichita vortex” poem. He had a chanting and reading on the University campus, where he chanted Hare Krishna with a harmonium, and then read poetry. Some real cool moments. I also had a short poet career of my own – I wrote a few. There were 2 other poets who called on me, and we drove around town for a while, talking of putting together a book of poems. Shortly after that, I was shocked by two sudden tragedies, one poet, JC, was killed in a car wreck, and the other made a vegetable from a motorcycle accident. The double trama was the end of our brief association, the end of a short career in poetry, for all of us. Retrospect realization? It was a realization then and now, life is fragile and unpredictable. Our poems could not save them.

Still, we were geared up for a summer of love, at least that’s the way we hear it from the pioneers of consciousness expansion out there in California, in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury. Before the revolution, the pastime in Wichita was beer [nothing else to do]. I was sometimes chided by the boys, when they often caught me back home reading Russian literature, [of which I was obsessed with a half dozen Russian writers] while they were debauching at the bohemian bar called “the blackout” [afraid I was getting ahead of them, I guess]. One night someone told me that about 50 people were at the apartment, I went home and saw, it was a spontaneous happening, no invitations, many laying in the grass yard engaging in mind expansion. It was something totally unheard of in KS. But the government did not take kindly to our budding revolution, as our apartment quickly became the first virtual crash pad in KS, and the Feds came and busted everybody, everyone except me and my friend. We thought we might be next, so we hit the road on foot the next day, and hitch-hiked out to CA, first to LA and then to the Haight.

When we got to the Haight, it was a total freakout. We were walking down Haight Street, and I almost bumped into Ravi Shankar, and he was looking around with this aghast expression, looking totally freaked out. It seemed that the upper powers-that-be could not tolerate the summer of love, [love children don’t work hard, don’t go to war] and aid-de-camped the mafia to help spread the use of heavy drugs. All the peace-loving hippies had become meth-monsters, hooked on methadrine, and their long hair spiraled out in all directions, in cork-screw fashion, straight up and out, and all over their heads. They walked like zombies with hepatitis-yellow and vacant eyes. One was sitting on the curb, staring into space. It was an un-nerving, uncanny jolt to our nerves, a truly scary sight for us two fresh mid-western boys from KS. We were ready to get back, “get back to where we once belonged,” back to Kansas, back to mom and apple pie and toto.

Before leaving, we had witness to one last happening, the final night of the Fillmore West, where they had a grand finale of Steppenwolf and CCR and “its a Beautiful Day,” a mesmerizing music and light show. And late at night, it was all over, we had no ride, and we took a long walk back through the scary San Francisco downtown, back to our sleeping spot in the park. The next day, I used my last paycheck to fly us back to KS, back to good old American midwestern sanity.

It was the death of the summer of love and our hippy pipe-dreams, the flower children took a long last toke of poison into their black lungs and the summer died. Over the years, I slowly came into contact with the eternal euphoria, being blessed with some Krishna conscious literature, Srila Prabhupada’s books, and the rest was blissful history. Looking back on it all, such a lesson learned, yet, still so many children will not learn from our tales of the “school of hard knocks,” and they will have to tread the path of “so-called mind expansion” themselves. Some learn from hearing, and some can only learn from the hard lessons of experience. Some won’t learn. But many of us know, we’ve been there, and we met our master and savior. Jai Srila Prabhupada!

This was an incredible Harinam experience I had in Denver.  We would regularly go on Harinam in Denver, with Apurva prabhu and the devotees. One day Madhuvisa came into town. Madhuvisa was known as the “emperor of sankirtan” in the old days. He and several young gurukulis were traveling around the USA hitting all the Ratha-yatras in every big city. Janaka and Nandu were two of the boys that I remember. They were on their way to LA, and stopped in Denver. And we decided to have a big Harinam in down town Denver. My daughter, Vrindadevi and her friend, Devaki, came along for the fun. 

In the van on the way to town, Madhuvisa gave an inspiring talk on Harinam Sankirtan. And on the sidewalk, he stopped the party and gave a little talk. He said that we weren’t meant to be entertainers for the people, that they had much better entertainers than us. He said that we are only out there to chant Krishna’s holy name to satisfy Krishna and Him only.  And if we just try to satisfy Krishna, and then the people will benefit. My daughter told me later that she was inspired by those thoughts, and it worked for her. Normally, when we first go out on the street to chant, we are caught up with self awareness, and “I’m the doer” consciousness. My friend Brajendranandana once told this nicely, he said that when he first shaved up, and went out on the streets to chant, “his head felt like it was a balloon, a 100 miles thick.” Then, if we don’t snap out of this consciousness, then we start thinking our kirtan is really bad, people don’t like us, and feel self conscious and embarrassed. 

Madhuvisa’s talk really worked. We completely forgot our own little selfs, and chanted in wild abandon. I remember that was one of the most wildest kirtans I’ve ever been in. The people of Denver would always try to act like they were ignoring us, but this time you could see their astonishment, and they couldn’t stop themselves from relishing Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtan movement. My daughter and her friend were dancing around in circles madly. And the young gurukulis, especially Janak and Nandu, were like transcendental madmen. At times the boys were just running back and forth through the crowds as they watched in astonishment. There were moments when it seemed like everybody on the sidewalk, was Krishna consciousness and in total bliss.

Ten or Twenty Years After

I may have a little insight to share. When I was in LA, it was a very blissful program there, and it still is, as Gauridas will relate sometimes. Devotees loved to go to the morning program and the kirtans and association was really nice. There was this older vaisnava there, named Bhakta Bob. I say Bob, because that was a long time ago, and I forgot his name. But, he was a really nice devotee and really sincere about Krishna consciousness. He was getting ready to go to India, to stay and live there. He was really into it, as he always talked about  Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. I started to notice that it seemed that I never saw him around the temple, until later in the day. I knew him well enough to ask him about it one day. I told him about mangala arotik and how blissful it was, and how I hoped to see him there. He explained to me that he understood, but he was really getting on in years, getting pretty old, and he was having difficulty getting up so early and so on and so on. But, he told me that he was confident that despite any difficulties in sadhana, that he was confident that he was going back to godhead in his next life, because he was always absorbed in Krishna consciousness, and he loved everything about Srila Prabhupada and Krishna.

I never really understood where that was coming from, until I started getting old, and that’s been happening in the last few years. For some reason, I am also feeling old and worn out, and sick sometimes, and especially in this winter freezing cold, it is difficult for me to walk up to the temple. I stay in the ashram and chant and read (and especially I nerd out on the computer, will talk about that later), and sometimes I tend to beat myself up, for not doing what I think I should be doing. Because I know all the bliss I am missing by not seeing the deities, although I have some very beautiful Gour-Nitai deities right here in the ashram.

So, some of us are not even near a temple, and some of us are near but cannot always go, for some reason or another. But, sometimes we are much more harder on ourselves than Krishna and Srila Prabhupada are. Damaghosa is right is saying that some of us are shell shocked from so many bad things happening to us and our kids and the movement over the years, and getting old, it gets real hard to keep it together sometimes, especially when we feel we are lacking devotee association. It may be, that I do nerd out on the puter a little too much sometimes, but this cyber association is often the best thing that’s happened to many of us.

As Mahaksa knows too, he may remember that little thing I wrote a while back about “imaginary friends.” I think that was the title. We sit at the box, and there’s nobody there, invisible friends. Sometimes it seems like “arm-chair philosophy.” Sometimes it seems we need to do more “physical” service, and this cyber space is all in the mind. But then again, this world web invention has sparked some of the most intense sravanam kirtanam sessions in our history of Iskcon vaisnavism, sparking maha realizations all around the globe. Especially those getting on in years, who do less of the physical, and more of the writing and mentally hearing and chanting. Yes, for older Vaisnavas, it is a little bit of arm-chair philosophy, why not?

As my friend Mahaksa dasa would often humorously say, rambling on, just a bit, so will stop here, and ramble on to something else, ys visokadasa

Two chance meetings and two rare artifacts

  This is a story about a very transcendental day with mother Krishna Prema dasi and Mother Jahnava dasi, and another transcendental day with my good godbrother Sriman Bhakta Dasa.

   Supersoul works in a most mysterious way. He brings us together at the uncanniest times, with such sheer perfect timing, it seems. Sometimes we come together with friends or people we’ve never met before, and it seems like a great coincidence, and then again, we see it as a higher intelligence, who is guiding us into such seemingly chance meetings. We are all puppets in Krishna’s hands. I will tell of a most transcendental day spent with some amazing devotees, who are special Jayanandanugas. Devotees are the most wonderful and amazing people on this earth. Spiritual sanga with such devotees is the summit of our devotional career. We are always hankering for the association of devotees, and I especially savor those treasured moments of holy association with dear Jayanandanugas, those devotees who knew Jayananda, and those who didn’t actually physically meet him, but who love him by hearing.

    I was always talking to Krishna Prema dasi on the Internet about Jayananda, with emails and IM’s, but had never met her or knew what she looked like. Then, right before Christmas, I told her that we were going to Florida, to be with our daughter for Christmas, and maybe we would see her there. I wasn’t really serious about a meeting. But there was a slight premonition in the back of the mind. Perhaps we would meet there. I had this feeling that somehow Krishna Prema dasi and I would somehow meet in Florida. But I forgot about it until that day.

  We got to Florida, and we had not gone to the temple yet, and it was after lunchtime. We decided to go for lunch prasad. But we were kind of late, and when we got there, it seemed like it was all over. But we went around to the back and there was still prasad on the serving table. Just then, a young lady devotee came up and wanted to serve us. She was serving us prasad, and she was saying how she had traveled like 5 hours to get to the temple, and how she hardly ever came to the Alachua temple, but somehow happened to come on this occasion. I put two and two together, and I got this feeling that this was the person whom I suspected, and I asked her name, and she said, “Krishna Prema dasi.”

   I was flabbergasted. We both gave an exuberant “Haribol.” We went to take prasadam, and she introduced Prtha (my wife) and me to a very senior Srila Prabhupada disciple, Jahnava dasi. We had nice prasadam and nice conversation and then went to see Jahnava’s home to see her Radha Krishna deities. We had a very ecstatic kirtan and I was really blissed out in that kirtan, as Jahnava led the chanting. After being talked into it, I put some licks on the mrdanga, though I was never expert in mrdanga, somehow the beats were transcendentally right on time. Afterwards, Jahnava dasi showed me a very rare spiritual artifact, or tadiya, which is an object in relationship to the Lord or his devotees. It was the original notebook of Jayananda’s, in which he wrote,

“Fire yajna-  One must approach one

who has realized the truth.

If we approach one who has not fully realized

 the truth then what good will that association do?”

 This is the penultimate succinctly profound message from Jayananda Prabhu. Yes, the sanga of fully realized devotees is the most valuable thing in this material world. A moment’s association with Krishna’s pure devotee cannot compare to all the wealth in Solomon’s coffers. I was blissed out to come into contact with that association of Jahnava and Krishna Prema and the holy tadiya artifact of Jayananda.

Everybody’s guru

 One day, my daughter, Vrnda Dasi, and I went to Madhuvisa Dasa’s house, which was nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills in California. I never had a reason to go to his house before, but this time there was some reason, and we came unannounced. I had no idea that Bhakta Dasa was there, with Madhuvisa. This was a pleasant surprise for me. We three talked awhile and the conversation came around to Jayananda. I said how I somehow always felt like Jayananda was my guru, I suppose like a siksa guru. Bhakta Dasa said, “Jayananda is everybody’s guru.” I didn’t know then, how prophetic Bhakta Dasa’s words were. Jayananda was more of a regional hero in California and New York City at that time. The rest of the devotee world didn’t fully know his wonderful and glorious story, how he left us a glorious life, vividly imprinted in the hearts of his godbrothers, written on tablets of fond memories, with indelible images of golden deeds and sweet words, his example shining like a lighthouse beacon in a dark stormy sea of Kali. Bhakta Dasa’s words were prophetic in how Jayananda’s story would be told by several biographies some day, how the world of devotees would realize his saintliness, how he would shine as the perfect disciple of  Srila Prabhupada, how he would teach the world by his exemplary life, how he would be siksa guru for generations of Krishna bhaktas into the future.

   Then Bhakta Dasa did something very special, he had a fragment of Lord Chaitanya’s original gumpsa, or garment, of which he procured a small fragment from the Radha Raman Temple in Vrindavan India. All paraphernalia and clothing of the Lord is non-different from the Lord, and so Bhakta Dasa took me and Vrnda inside the house, to the altar, where the garment fragment was gorgeously set within a frame, and he touched the garment prasad of the Lord to both our heads, and we felt great bliss.

   Oh, how great is the spiritual potency of holy tadiya or garments of the Lord, or tadiya articles used by his dear servitors, as the Caitanya-caritamrta says in Madhya-lila 12.38,

“O Devi, the most exalted system of worship

is the worship of  Lord Visnu.

Greater than that is the worship of tadiya,

or anything belonging to Visnu.”

Madhya 12.38

The amazing thing about containers … is that they contain things.

They contain. That is to say, they confine other objects to a certain set of dimensions. They restrict, they incarcerate. Just as a bucket contains milk, or a glass contains water, the glass imposes boundaries on the water, gives it form and definition.

There are many important containers, called material bodies, which contain jiva souls. They keep the souls from floating out into the white light, and they give them personality and a field of activity. There’s 8,400,000 varieties of these containers, which jivas are always entering and exiting. Every jiva thinks that his container is the all in all. This is the world of containment.

This body container gives the jiva a sense of "I" and "mine." Under the spell of Maya, the jiva thinks his container to be "I," and other containers to be "mine." There are many various material containers which surround the jiva soul, which he desires to possess and enjoy. Family members, clothes, cars, houses, etc. are a few among the many of these containers. Nice clothes or cars give the jiva a sense of worth. The house container serves by containing him from harsh elements of the world, such as rain and heat and cold. Thus the jiva soul is totally absorbed in the world of containers such as cell phones, computers, TV’s, cars, etc, and especially the bank, which contains money.

The whole essence of the material world is containment, or restriction of freedom. Its essence is the incarceration of objects, for the profit and pleasure of various bewildered jiva souls. But in the spiritual world, just the opposite is happening, that is, non-containment, and non-restriction.

Many of the best things in life are actually free. Krishna gives us free energy, such as sunshine and rain and foodstuffs growing free all the time. But people like to take God’s energy and confine it. The take the fruits and veggies and put them in containers, such as cans and bottles and boxes, and put them in large containers called stores, to sell them for money, to put in their bank containers, so they can get more and better and nicer containers, such as TV;s and cars, etc, more than their envious neighbors. In this way, they claim ownership and lordship over God’s free energy, trying to contain it for their own enjoyment.

The act of eating itself is containment. The jiva opens the potato chip bag and frees the chips, only to contain them in his mouth and stomach. Jivas often oppose each other, as some try to get more containers than alloted as their quota, and thus there’s always a fight. In defense, the other jiva tries to contain his enemy, and restrict his freedom, or incarcerate him in a prison. In mating, one jiva tries to contain another jiva for him or herself, for a lifetime. Actually this is very good for human society. Thus we see in all the animal propensities, a sense of containment.

When the contained jiva finally gets fortunate, he meets the bona fide spiritual master, in whose words all the vedas are contained. Then the jiva gets injected with the Maha-mantra, which contains 16 holy names with 32 syllables. By chanting this mantra, the jiva cannot contain his joy. His spiritual freedom and ecstasy is virtually uncontainable. Then he breaks out of the containment of this material world and goes to the spiritual world where there is complete un-containment.

The spiritual world is opposite, no containment. Kalpavrksa trees give freely, as does Cintamani dhama, and surabir cows. Prema flows freely every where, especially from Krishna’s flute. His devotees are not in material cases, with no need of cars or houses to protect from foul weather. Even here on this earth, when the devotee dances with arms upraised, this is a gesture of opening up and letting it all out. Its blowing the lid off the countless containers of millions of years of inward anxiety and letting out the pent up love for Krishna, that had so long been transformed into lust. The joy of coming to Krishna Consciousness has no containment.

A thing that we should always remember, is never try to contain other devotees. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Maharaja said, "The idea that one should be master of God’s devotees leads to inferno." Also, the Talaba Upanishad says, "those who aspire to be masters of the devotees, who are the masters of God Himself, are indeed most culpably arrogant." Srila Prabhupada is the only master, and we should verily refrain from the urge to contain other devotees of the Lord. We should only work on our own containers, and let Srila Prabhupada be the master, and know that Krishna is always in control.

You know… the funny thing about containers … is that they contain things … but it doesn’t have to be that way eternally ... Om Tat Sat

Mohan was riding the long greyhound bus ride, from the midwest to the eastern seaboard. Watching the scenery go by, he marveled at the wonders of Krishna’s creation. The many hills and beautiful landscapes were a artistic flow, everything harmonius to his sight. His mind kept going back to this skill he had. If you want to call it that. He had this certain predilection. It was a propensity that haunted. Perhaps a little infamous to some, but he had finally come into his own, in a certain vindication of this lifelong habit. Justification was a sweet tune, that it was. Coming to Krishna Consciousness was not only the perfection of life, but the perfection of this particular flaw. A character flaw some might say, although wrapped in transcendental veneer.

But was it really a flaw? Now these kinds of thoughts only confirmed his ultimate failings. He was a rascal of a sort, and these kinds of rationalizing thoughts only cemented it for good. But we are all rascals, when we come to this material world, he thought. Yes, but not after devotional emancipation, he was told. At least not the same kind of rascal. And not that he was bad, no, he did his service, some Sankirtan, some Hari-nama, some Diety service, some kitchen service. But this rascal residue was lingering, but then again, it was transcendental in its own rite as well.

Well, Mohan was a temple hopper from way back. Not a conscious choice so much, but it just seemed to happen that way. He was a servant of Krishna to be sure, but he was secretly known for a certain skill in his possesion. Unspoken skill, that is, not spoken in official airways, but underground, as you will. Not officially, not a skill commanding pride, as in a public announcement or the such, but duly admired in the background none-the-less, by devotees, big or small.

You see, Mohan was pastmaster of an age-old profession, called borrowing things, or sometimes called thievery. This skill found its consummate summit in Krishna Consciousness, as the unauthorized taking of the Lord’s remnants hold no karmic reaction, nor infamy or shame. As they say, it is wholly bona- fide, and transcendental. Unlike its mundane counterpart of the abominable theivery of goods of this material world. In fact it is good, it is admirable, it is desirable by all who savour its transcendental rasa. There is no sin accrued. It is service to the supreme.

Yet, not exactly sanctioned. No, not by official count. But here is where the transcendental sport comes into being. For without resistance, without obstruction, then transcendental rascaldom would have no meaing. This he thought. Reading the Nectar of Devotion, he observed this principal in the Lila sports of Krishna and his Vrindavan rasa. Jatila, the old woman, was a valuable player in that rasa, for her service was to place obstructions on the path of Krishna’s pastimes with Radha and the Gopis. Without a spiritual condemnation by her and certain elders, then the thrill of parakiya rasa would lose its transcendental flavor.

Mohan thought back in his life, of this peculiar predilection of his. He recounted how he and his friends would sneak into farmer John’s watermelon patch, in the dead of night. After befriending the dog and soothing its ireful nature, they would feast on watermelon, while the moon shone bright, until their stomachs almost burst. Farmer John would at times, become cognizant of the villiany, and waving shotgun in hand, hollering dire threats, come bounding out the back door, as teenage boys scattered in all directions, as buckshot whizzed about.

Almost as fun as the deed itself, was the telling and retelling of the adventure amongst themselves and to other schoolmates. Everybody listened with satisfaction of the watermelon hyst adventures. Everybody loves a rascal. Why is that? Everybody especially admires the class clown, who cuts up and disrupts the class, even under the tight surveliance of the teacher. There is something about a rascal who rebels against the system and mocks it, that illicits great admiration from all. Maybe its perhaps, thought Mohan, that everybody knows that the whole world is all about cheating and fraud. Its all about the cheaters and the cheated. And the so-called rascal who challenges the system is showing that he’s a better rascal and cheater than they. He does it boldly and openly. They do it sneakingly. People in general, actually really admire this upfront honest kind of rascaldom that flaunts in the face of the bigger insidious rascals.

History and literature has shown the popularity of rascals. There’s Robin Hood, the great hero of the poor who stole from the rich, who had more than their prescribed quota. And there was Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, the most beloved rascal of all time. And there was the famous Bilbo, who burglared the den of gollum. And don’t forget the little rascals, everybody’s favorites. And there’s the greatest of all, Lord Sri Krishna, who in his tender youth, displayed his sublime pastime as the butter thief. Poets and sages will forever praise his transcendental rascaldom.

There are many pastimes of how Krishna tricked the demons with seemingly dishonest ploys, and how he did rascally things to the gopis. And then there was Srimati Radharani, how she stole Krishna’s flute. Mohan had also heard of how Jayananda had stole some pants, because he did not like to spend Krishna’s laxmi. There was the history of the raising of funds by thieves to build the Ranga temple in days of antiquity, in India. Transgressions of the standards of morals was always there in the transcendence. Why should it change now? Everybody in creation, has their particular skill, and it goes along with that, a certain yoga of how to use your skill in Krishna’s service.

Mohan recounted how, way back there in the past, how he began his young career of stealing things here and there. One day he was stealing a record album, just a normal day it was. But that day was to change his life forever. As he walked through the store with the album concealed under his coat, suddenly a hand grasped his shoulder from behind. This is the moment feared most by all kleptomaniacs. Its that fear that always lurks in the mind … of the sudden long arm of the law that grabs from behind. He froze in tripidation of the sudden karma of the sudden hand. Surely the store manager was behind, ready to yell at ‘em or bust ‘em to a jail cell or something. But as he turned around, he gasped in relief to see a neighborhood boy, and not the manager.

Well, he got off that time, but learned a big lesson. That was the big warning, for him to stop when he could, and not enter into a life of crime. And he also realized that stealing was hurting other people. He did not want to hurt anyone. But now things were different, in this transcendental borrowing, it hurts nobody at all. It is service to the Lord’s prasad. It is borrowing, not taking Krishna’s energy, but honoring his energy. He was rascal by nature, and he knew it, and yet, only the sublime philosophy of Krishna Consciousness could engage his rascal propensity, properly, and be transcendental, and serve God, and not hurt anybody in the process! What a philosophy!

Well, his reputation preceded him. No advertisement needed. Reputation was largely unspoken, yet secretly admired by those who admires a good rascal.

This is the story of every man’s life. This is the prison break that we try to make … if we are lucky. We all have our battles in life, to do our service, and meanwhile cope with social interaction, so on, and then basically, just survive in “the hard struggle for existense.”

   But all men have this internal battle, which goes on life after life. Life after life, until we get it straight. I think most men can relate to this … and the women may benefit from this writing, maybe by understanding a little more … the spirit souls in men’s bodies a little more, and maybe be a little more compassionate, by dint of understanding that its only the modes of nature, and not to take it so personal and all, like we really want to do these weird things and all.

   I would write about the woman’s battle within and without, but I’m not understanding that so much, not being currently in that body, and not remembering the experience from past lifes, etc. The sexes should understand the modes and rise above the gender wars, as we are all just the same old spirit souls, alas, all trapped in one of the two genders, and we just don’t ever understand the other’s entrapment quite enough, to have that sufficient compassion.

  This has basically been said before, as nothing is new under the sun ... but this essay has been in my head for a while, and it has helped me realize to get the business done, and then move on to higher realms. Yes, higher realms … but alas, the higher rasa is not possible, until this particular bugaboo is dealt with, and finished, on a permanent basis.

  And this is about the beast in every man’s life. Some realize the beast, and fight him, and some never really know the beast and the damage that’s done, and all the while, their precious life just goes on by, and the wonderful chance of human life is wasted again … life after life.

PARADISE OF INNOCENSE LOST

  A man is born with some degree of innocense. Oh yes, he has his past karma, no doubt, but there’s a little temporary innocence there at first. He prays in the womb to the Lord, feeling the pain of material existence, but … as soon as he pops out, everyone is chanting his glories, and alas, he forgets his promise to the Lord, and falls under the spell of Devi Maya. That is why Sukadeva stayed put in the womb for 16 years, he didn’t want to come out … for he knew, how a new born soul will fall in Maya.

   Entering the world, he learns all about envy and selfishness very nicely. Then at some point in his tender youth, his mother or his friends tell him about the uh … nitty-gritty of sex life. The details … uh, that is ... of how one urinal is united with another urinal. What??

   I remember when my mother told me this bizare fact of life. I remember how revolting it all sounded to me at the time. I thought that those parts were for urine only, and that they were nasty and all. And to join them with someone else’s, and a girl at that!, Ohhh …. that seemed like the nastiest thing in the world to my young mind. Why, how could anybody do that!? I was so young and naïve. No way man, was I ever… ever… going to do that, no way sir. But the day would surely come, as it does in all men’s lives, that someday I would find out why this thing was done … and that was for sure, my friend.

FROM THE MOST DISGUSTING TO THE HIGHEST GOAL IN LIFE-

   Boys are repulsed by girls up to a certain age. Then, as life goes on, they slowly, or sometimes quickly, they come around to understand what this attraction is all about. And the big revelation is this- that which was so darn revolting in the beginning, that nasty thought of the double u, (the union of urinals), the same thing arises upon the horizon of the boy’s consciousness … and this is were the beast first raises his ugly head ... and the full realization comes. Which is this-  The prior thing that was so nasty in the past, the very same thing is actually the highest pleasure in this material world!! Its the thing which everyone is working so hard to get. Why … the whole world revolves around this u/u! (the almighty double u).

   So get with the program boy! The snakes, snails and puppy-dog tails are all over … gone for good, finis … and the real thing is here! Its the u/u man, so get with it!  Its glorified in the movies and magazines and TV and novels and pop songs. So you just had to go for it, and never mind the consequences,  just get it at any cost. This was the grand illusion and brainwash, my friend.

THE GREATEST STRANGLEHOLD THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN

   And little did you know, boy … just how great the cost would be … get a career … and work your little tail off for fifty years … get the house … get the car … bank balance … on and on and on … and all for what? For the good old chapala sukla, the good old u/u. Yeah, the beast has now got you tightly in his grips, yeah boy, he’s got you in the greatest stranglehold the world has ever known.

   As Srila Prabhupada says in his purport to Bhaje Hure Mana (I love this tape). “What? Work all day … work all night … don’t care for scorching heat … don’t care for pounding rain … and for what? For a few moments or more?, just a little flickering pleasure … and for THAT … you are working day and night!!??” This cracks me up every time … Jai Srila Prabhupada!

STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND

We’re all just aliens in a machine. You know that? We really don’t fit well in these machines. We’re here against our will. Forced to act by the machine’s rules. We don’t like the urges of the machine, or all the social obligation, but we are forced to act. We’re strangers in a strange land.

  Woman comes into the path of the male’s eyes (or visa/versa). We, the one inside, don’t really want the botheration of being attracted to this. But alas, the machine, the body forces us to look and think. We might be married, even renounced in intelligence, but still … the machine acts like a machine never-the-less. The eye sends an impulse to the brain, some chemical does something, and the machine makes one look and ponder. Trapped like a bird in a cage. Stranger in a strange land.

   Just like the king asking Chanakya, “how long does this sex thing last?” Chanakya told him to come with him to the hospital, (and bring his daughter.) A dying man lay on his bed, and the king came into the room, but … his eyes went to the daughter first! So Chanakya said, “how long? You ask??, until the fag end of life!” Yes, forced to do … until the fag end.

   A lot of us, if we only had the option … if there was a switch on the libido, if we could just turn it off!! We certainly would! Turn it off for good! But no! It doesn’t turn off that easy! Yeah, strangers in a strange land. Thats what we are.

THE GIANT IS AROUSED

   With time, some men will come around to resisting the beast. But many will remain ogres and serve the beast till the fag end. But those fortunate ones … who can somehow look back, and look forward … and see the whole enchilada of life, and somehow get a kick-start with the God’s gift of human intelligence … they will start to see the world of senses and objects, for what they really are. 

   Yes, the faint memories of childhood may come again … of how the whole affair was so disgusting in the mind … this u/u thing. As the first glints of the dawn of realization appear on the transcendental horizen of consciousness, and he thinks, “its not all its cracked up to be, I should have stuck with my gut feelings at the first get-go, the first impression was so … so right on … so long  ago … and now we know, its just not all that great, for one to crow … and obsess about so.” One will wonder how he got so entrapped in the whole mess, and why those round pounds of flesh becomes so important to him and to every other man on God’s green earth.

   Yes, all men do this thing … this obsession thing with the opposite … those unrelenting sense objects, and that is the curse, oh yes. And the woman’s curse … well, not to get into that … one gender here is about all we can handle at the moment’s time. So now’s the time to get spiritual, or something like that, says the inner child of sanity of the one deep within … the stranger in a strange land. The spiritual essense within is seething upward … bursting out, to get out of the gross encasement of a body and mind that obsesses with those flickering sports of the flesh … oh yes … that stranger in the strange land … he wants out … he wants his spirit to break out, and shine forth.

IF LUCKY, HE’LL MEET THE BONA FIDE GURU

And so, if the poor soul is lucky, he will contact the bona fide representative of God, because there are so many cheaters out there, waiting with their meat hooks. But that is the way of material nature, God gives you what you want … to each his own … and if he wants a cheater … God will certainly supply him a cheater … there is no dearth of them. On the other hand (lets not be so pessimistic here) if he is truly sincere, then God will give him the genuine goods, the bona fide guru … like His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, most probably in the form of his divine all-powerful books. Then the giant within, the soul, will be able to break out … out of this prison of material nature … and defeat the beast.

So we hope there’s a happy end to the story told herein. In all men’s lifes. Women too. Om Tat Sat.