# Back to Godhead Magazine #27 *1993 (01)* Back to Godhead Magazine #27-01, 1993 PDF-View ## Statement of Purposes Back to Godhead magazine is a cultural presentation to respiritualize human society. It aims at achieving the following purposes: 1. To help all people distinguish more clearly between reality and illusion, spirit and matter, the eternal and the temporary. 2. To present Kṛṣṇa consciousness as taught in *Bhagavad-gītā* and *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam*. 3. To help every living being remember and serve Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead. 4. To offer guidance in the techniques of spiritual life. 5. To expose the faults of materialism. 6. To promote a balanced, natural way of life, informed by spiritual values. 7. To increase spiritual fellowship among all living beings, in relationship with Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. 8. To perpetuate and spread the Vedic culture. 9. To celebrate the chanting of the holy names of God through the *saṅkīrtana* movement of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. ## From the Editor *Deadline* SOMETIMES THE ARTICLES in BTG weave themselves around one theme without our intending it. We just put the articles together into an issue, and at the end we find that a theme has emerged. So it is with this issue. The theme this time is death. Śrīla Prabhupāda in his article talks about it. Ravīndra Svarūpa tells of his encounter with it. On page 41, death comes looking for a devotee in South Africa. In our article on Tulasī Devī, death comes again. So for this page I knew fairly well what I would write about. Death.… death … But what would I say? How would I deal with it? Simple: I put it off. I knew I had nothing profound to say—the profound points are made elsewhere. And I didn't want to say anything trite. So I answered my mail. I cleaned up my office. I plunged into managerial decisions. Made some phone calls. Cleaned my office again … And now it has come: the deadline. And still, I confess to you, I’m not ready. I don't know just what to say. I don’t feel prepared. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Well.… That's always the right thing. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and you'll think of Kṛṣṇa. And when you think of Kṛṣṇa, your problems are solved. And if they're not yet solved, then you chant some more.… Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa.… and your mind starts to become clearer. The dust disperses, the mirror of the mind starts to unfog … Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare.… You start remembering that Kṛṣṇa is everywhere as the all-pervading Brahman, that He's within your heart as the Supersoul, and finally that in His most attractive, most splendid feature He’s the Personality of Godhead, the eternal form of bliss and knowledge. Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma.… Kṛṣṇa Himself is known as Rāma, meaning “the reservoir of all pleasure,” and He also appears as the incarnation known as Śrī Rāmacandra—or, more simply, Lord Rāma. Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. In each incarnation, Kṛṣṇa reveals Himself to His devotees, performs wonderful pastimes, gives sublime instructions. He attracts the mind. And when we're attracted to Kṛṣṇa—when we revive our Kṛṣṇa consciousness—we’re restored to our natural, eternal relationship with the ultimate source of all existence. What then do we care for other things? Let us go on chanting and hearing the glories of Kṛṣṇa—all the way to our … to our … to our deadline. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. ### —Jayadvaita Swami ## Letters *Cite True Authority* Thank you, editors, for printing Bhava Dasa’s letter [Sep./Oct.] in regards to Śrī Rama Dasa’s “Four Kinds of Parents” article (May/June ’92). As a father of five children I appreciate BTG’s commitment to Kṛṣṇa conscious education of our children. In Bhava Dasa’s letter he made several valid points. One was his objection to Śrī Rama’s reference to two “karmi” university studies (almost exclusively) to confirm his view. This is not to say that his points of contention had no validity (many did), only that bar charts from this university or that study don’t necessarily help to verify them. In his reply to Bhava Dasa, Śrī Rama has quoted the *Śrīmad-Bhagavatam* and referred to Śrīla Prabhupāda and Canakya Pandita to verify his points of contention. This is true authority, confirmation, and verification. If these references were used in the article instead of university bar charts, etc., perhaps Bhava Dasa wouldn’t have felt such great sadness when he read it. Guttiea Rensselaer, New York *Kṛṣṇa Clubs* I am very impressed with the new BTGs. Although they don’t have as many color pictures, they have more in-depth matter about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which is more important. I especially enjoyed reading the article entitled “Bhakti Yoga at School.” Jahnavi’s devotion to Kṛṣṇa and her enthusiasm to preach the holy name have encouraged me to do the same. I am hoping to start a *Bhagavad-gītā* club in my school with the help of one of my friends. I have already started a club at my high school called S.A.A.V.E.—Students Against Animal Violence Everywhere. I feel that as a devotee of Kṛṣṇa it is my duty to protect or at least attempt to protect His creation. I would like to encourage all teenagers to also start a Kṛṣṇa conscious club in their high school. Don’t be afraid or embarrassed. I was at first, but just let Kṛṣṇa take control—and watch what happens! Sangeeta Kumar Toronto, Canada *Clarify Wife’s Role* I would like to comment on the article by Mulaprakriti Devi Dasi and Visakha Devi Dasi [July/August]. Knowing them both as very strong and independently capable persons, I’m glad to see such spiritual understandings being expressed. What worries me, though, is that many unscrupulous men misinterpret the concept of the wife fulfilling all the “material desires” of the husband. It should be clear that this does not include physical or psychological abuse. An innocent service attitude is never meant to be exploited for sense gratification. Kavicandra Swami Tokyo, Japan *Disappointed* I received the Oct./Nov. BTG, and I am sorry to say I was very disappointed. I’m curious to know how many devotees in this movement are disappointed with BTG. My basic complaint is that it is not dynamic or exciting enough to attract people to ISKCON as much as it should. I would like to distribute BTG, but not as it is now. Vivasvān Dāsa Tampa, Florida *We welcome your letters. Send correspondence to The Editors, Back to Godhead, P.O. Box 90946, San Diego, CA 92169, USA.* ## Victory Over Death *Though beautiful, the setting sun represents the passing of our days and the steady march to our final appointment.* ### By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami PrabhupādaFounder-Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness ### A lecture given in Los Angeles, June 12, 1972 > āyur harati vai puṁsāṁ > udyann astaṁ ca yann asau > tasyarte yat-kṣano nīta > uttama-śloka-vārtayā “Both by rising and by setting, the sun decreases the duration of life of everyone, except one who utilizes the time by discussing topics of the all-good Personality of Godhead.” —Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.3.17 THE SUNRISE AND SUNSET decrease our life. This is a very nice example. The sun’s business is to take away a portion of your span of life. But it cannot take away the life of a devotee, because a devotee is going to live. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is meant to give the living entity a permanent span of life. When a man becomes diseased, the physician tries to get him relief from the infection. Our material body is an infection. Actually, we spiritual souls have no death. Death is due to this infection, the body. This infection is called “dirty things.” Actually the body is dirt. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” That’s a fact. Because as soon as I, the soul, leave this body, it will be immediately decomposed, and after a few days it will be earth, dust. So actually it is dirt. And we have to cleanse this dirt from our real identity—spiritual life. The cleansing is very nicely done simply by hearing the message of Uttama-śloka, or Kṛṣṇa. You haven’t got to scratch the soul with some machine. No. It will automatically be cleansed if you simply give aural reception to the message of Uttama-śloka, which is called *kṛṣṇa-kathā.* *Kṛṣṇa-kathā* means the words of Kṛṣṇa. *Kathā* means words. In the *Bhagavad-gītā,* Kṛṣṇa is personally giving us words of instruction. If we simply read the *Bhagavad-gītā,* then the sun cannot take away our duration of life. What is the proof? We find the proof in the *Bhagavad-gītā,* where Lord Kṛṣṇa says, *janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti *tattvataḥ*:* “Anyone who understands My birth and appearance does not take birth again.” The Lord Himself does not take birth. He is Aja, “one who never takes birth—ever-existing.” But still we see that Kṛṣṇa is taking birth. We are observing the birth anniversary of Lord Kṛṣṇa. This is a mystery. Kṛṣṇa does not take birth, and still we are observing the birth anniversary of Kṛṣṇa, Janmāṣṭamī. So this is to be understood in truth—*tattvataḥ*. The Vedas say, *na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate*: “The Supreme Lord has nothing to do.” Why should He have to do anything? Yet we see that from the day of His appearance at His maternal uncle’s prison till His going back to His own abode, Kṛṣṇa was always active, especially in killing the demons. But the demons could be killed without the presence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If there is a little earthquake, millions of demons can be killed. It is not a very difficult job. If the Pacific Ocean floods this city, millions of people can be killed. If there is a war, millions of people can be killed. If there is an epidemic, millions of people can be killed. So Kṛṣṇa does not come to kill the demons. Rather, Kṛṣṇa's many agents can kill the demons without any difficulty. But He comes. Lord Nṛsiṁha did not appear in order to kill the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu. He could have been killed otherwise. But the Lord appeared for Prahlāda. Prahlāda Mahārāja was being so much teased and tortured. The Lord could not tolerate it. He wanted to show His devotee, “I shall kill your torturer in front of you.” That was His purpose. He did not appear for killing Hiraṇyakaśipu. He appeared to give encouragement to Prahlāda Mahārāja. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says, *kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati.* He asks Arjuna, “My dear Arjuna, you declare that My devotee will never be vanquished.” So therefore He comes. These are the understandings of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in toto. We were discussing *kṛṣṇa-kathā*, the words of Kṛṣṇa. Every Vedic literature is *kṛṣṇa-kathā*. But two books are especially *kṛṣṇa-kathā*: Bhagavad-gītā—Kṛṣṇa directly speaking; and *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam*—directly spoken about Kṛṣṇa. Here it is said *uttama-śloka vārtayā*. *Vārta* means message, words. If we pass our time simply by reading and talking about Kṛṣṇa, then the sun will not be able to take away our life. This is the secret. If you want to become immortal, then always be engaged in *kṛṣṇa-kathā*. Always, twenty-four hours—think of Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Everyone is dying, but those who are engaged in *kṛṣṇa-kathā*, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, those who are busy in Kṛṣṇa's business, they are not dying. They are living. How? Because the span of life of the ordinary man is being taken away by the sunrise and sunset every day. If a man is fifty years old, fifty years has already been taken away by the sun. It will never come back. “But what about the devotee? He is also the same. His life is being taken away.” No. His life is not being taken away, because he is going to live. Superficially we see that the body of a devotee is also taken away. But this is not the real body. The real body is the spiritual body. Kṛṣṇa says, *tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti:* “After giving up this body, he does not take birth. He comes to Me.” So who comes to Him? The self. Materialistic persons, so-called scientists, philosophers—they do not know that the body is the cover of the self. The real self, the real person, goes to Kṛṣṇa to live forever. Those who are devotees, those who are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they are giving up this infected body and getting their original, spiritual body. Therefore, as soon as you get the spiritual body, the sun has no power to take it away. That is explained in the *Bhagavad-gītā:* “Fire cannot burn it, weapons cannot kill it, water cannot moisten it …” Spirit cannot be destroyed by anything material. This body is matter. It can be cut into pieces. But the spirit soul cannot be. The body can be burnt into ashes, but the spirit soul cannot be. The modern scientists say there is no life on the sun planet. But that is not a fact. What is the sun? It is a fiery planet, that’s all. But the spirit soul can live in the fire, and on the sun he gets a fiery body. Here on this planet, on earth, we have these earthly bodies. They may be very beautiful, but they are earth. Someone showed me some plastic trees, exactly resembling real trees. But they are not trees. Similarly, this body is as good as a plastic body. It has no value. Kṛṣṇa speaks of our giving up the body, but the body is like a plastic body. “Giving up the body” is like giving up a cotton shirt or a plastic shirt. That does not mean you die. That is also explained in the *Bhagavad-gītā: vācāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya…* As one gives up an old garment for a new one, similarly, death means to give up this plastic body and take another plastic body. And with that plastic body you have to work again. If you get a nice body, then you can work nicely. If you get a dog’s body, then you act like dog. Kṛṣṇa says, “Anyone who understands Me in truth will not take birth again.” So how will you understand Kṛṣṇa? Simply hear about Him; then you will understand. Hearing is not difficult. But you must hear from the realized soul. If you hear from a professional man, that will not be effective. Hearing must be from a *sādhu*, a devotee, just as Mahārāja Parīkṣit heard from Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Even if you read books, you will save your life. If you simply read Kṛṣṇa book or the *Bhagavad-gītā* or *Teachings of Lord Caitanya,* then the sun is unable to take your life. If you constantly read, where is the opportunity of the sun’s taking your life? That means you are becoming immortal. People are very much anxious to become immortal. Nobody wants to die. Everyone knows, “I shall die.” But if there is some danger—say, fire—immediately everyone will go away from this room. Why? I do not wish to die. I know I must die, so why do I go away? I could think, “Oh, let there be fire. I have to die today or tomorrow. Let me die.” No. I do not wish to die. Therefore I go away. This is the psychology. Everyone wants to live forever. That’s a fact. So if you want to live forever, then you have to take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This verse confirms it. *Āyur harati vai puṁsām udyann astaṁ ca yann asau*. The sun is rising early in the morning. As it is rising, gradually it is taking your life. That’s all. That is its business. But if you want to defeat the sun … The sun is very powerful. It is very difficult to fight. But you can fight with the sun. How? Simply by reading *kṛṣṇa-kathā*, the words of Kṛṣṇa. This is the simple process. Don’t waste your time talking nonsense. Rūpa Gosvāmī has advised, > atyāhāraḥ prayāsaś ca > prajalpo niyamāgrahaḥ > jana-saṅgaś ca laulyaṁ ca > ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati Our devotional life can be finished, or baffled, by six things. Those in devotional life, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, are fortunate. This fortune can be ruined by six things. Be careful. *Atyāhāra* means eating more than necessary or collecting more than necessary. *Āhāra* means collecting. We require to collect some money, but we should not collect more than necessary. Because if I get more money, then immediately Māyā will say, “Why don’t you spend for me?” *Āhāra* also means eating. Don’t eat more than necessary. Actually, we have to come to the point of nil—no eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. Of course, that is not possible because we have the body, but we must try to keep these activities to the minimum. *Prayāsaḥ* means unnecessarily spoiling our energy. We should not take great risks so that we have to work very seriously. We must accept something which can be easily done. *Prajalpa* means talking nonsense. This is the nature of the living entity in the conditioned state. Just as when crows gather together—*caw caw caw caw* … [Laughter.] The frogs—any living entity—as soon as they gather, they talk all nonsense. Don’t do that. We have a great assembly. We have facility for mixing. But don’t take advantage of this assembly and talk all nonsense—“What is the politics?” “What is this?” “What is that?” That is called *prajalpa*. *Niyamāgrahaḥ* means not accepting the rules and regulations. *Niyamāgrahaḥ* also means blindly following the rules and regulations. So, one, *atyāhāra;* two, *prayāsa*; three, *prajalpa*; four, *niyamāgrahah*; five, *laulyam,* greediness; and six, *janasaṅgaḥ. Jana-saṅgaḥ* means to associate with ordinary men, those who have no sense of Kṛṣṇa consciousness-the so-called *karmīs, jñānīs,* and *yogīs*. They do not understand Kṛṣṇa. Or scientists and philosophers—we should not associate with them. Because we know, *harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-gunā. Anyone* who does not understand Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa's service, even though he may be very big man in the ordinary estimation, we don’t give him any value. Because persons such as him are mental speculators. They have no value. They have value in their own way, but according to our line of thought, they have no value. There is a tendency to talk, so talk of Kṛṣṇa. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We assemble together, a few friends, and we want to vibrate some sound. The child is also vibrating sound. That is nature. A bird will vibrate; a beast will vibrate. So we have to vibrate transcendental sound. Then we shall be saved from the plundering business of the sun. This is the secret. Always talk of Kṛṣṇa, and you must know that you are saving yourself. You are not dying. Because talking of Kṛṣṇa means you will understand Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa says, "Anyone who understands Me rightly, then after giving up this body he comes to Me." And as soon as you go to Him, back to home, back to Godhead, your life is eternal, blissful, and full of knowledge. Why should we lose this opportunity? The most rascal persons give up this opportunity. They do not take advantage of *kṛṣṇa*-*kathā.* Therefore the scriptures say, *smartavyaḥ satataṁ viṣṇur vismartavyo na jātucit.* We have to remember Viṣṇu always, everywhere. This is the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We have to hear about Kṛṣṇa, we have to chant about Kṛṣṇa, we have to remember Kṛṣṇa, and we have to worship Kṛṣṇa. This is our movement. We are worshiping Kṛṣṇa in the temple, we are thinking of Him, we are talking about Him, and we are hearing about Him. These things do not require any monetary exchange or any high education. Everyone can hear about Kṛṣṇa. After hearing, everyone can talk about Kṛṣṇa. And while hearing and talking, everyone can remember Kṛṣṇa. And everyone can worship in the temple. Where is the difficulty? By prosecuting these four principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you become immortal. No austerity, no penance, no education, no riches. Simply by following these four principles, you become immortal. This verse is very important. If you have spare time, don't sit idly. If there is no facility for reading books or talking about Kṛṣṇa, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. Always be busy with Kṛṣṇa. The sun will not be able to kill you. You are going to live forever. Thank you very much. ## Lessons from the Road *A Preacher’s Diary—Visit to the Caribbean* ### By Satsvarūpa Dāsa Goswami I STEP OVER the chrome faucet. A pair of bulging eyes meet mine. It’s a friendly lizard. Welcome to the Caribbean. As I arrived in Trinidad the other day, I realized that Prabhupāda wants us to serve him by preaching. I often say I am serving him, but sometimes it sounds only official. The other day I really felt it—Prabhupāda does want us to preach widely, to sit down and talk with people, to come to places like Trinidad and Guyana and Santo Domingo. Tonight I will speak to Trinidadian devotees on our inability in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and on longing for the pure state. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura have explained these things to us through their songs. * * * We drove to the airport at 3:00 this morning to catch our 4:20 A.M. flight to Guyana. I plan to speak on *Manaḥ-śikṣā,* Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī’s “Prayers to the Mind.” The Guyanese audiences are already familiar with Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy, but they don’t need novel topics—the people are also easily satisfied. (Such a strange hour to travel; the plane is almost empty, but it’s the only flight.) Entering Guyana requires more paperwork than most countries: Form C-14A, a declaration of how much money you are carrying, plus two other forms. The government acts as if it is a great privilege to enter the country, although the place is rough and undeveloped. * * * After my lecture, one devotee asked, “How can we relate to Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī, who was so advanced in his desire to give intense and extraordinary love to his spiritual master, to Kṛṣṇa's abode and its residents, to the holy name, and to Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa?” I told him that the spiritual master will teach us how to apply Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī’s exalted sentiments even to our own lowly state. In addition to hearing *Manaḥ-śikṣā,* we also need to hear from our own initiating and instructing *gurus.* For example, Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī instructs his mind to give up all pride. Often we are not even aware that our minds are filled with pride. We have to examine ourselves. We tend to think we are the best lecturer or best *kīrtana* leader or best floor sweeper. Kṛṣṇa is so kind that He reciprocates with our pride and allows us to feel some satisfaction with our own talking or singing or sweeping—but He does not give us the pure nectar of the holy name. For that we have to give up all pride. The spiritual master can direct us in our vigilance in following the instructions of Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī. * * * The breeze blows through the open slats of the window in the temple. O Lord, O energy of the Lord, please engage me in Your service. *Be dum dum dum, be dum dum dum—*from the neighbor’s house, a reggae bass line reverberates this Sunday night as the last rays of red disappear in the west and the last guests are leaving the Sunday Feast. Feasts end early here so guests can travel home before it gets dark. How to chant with devotion, intent, praying to pay attention and call for the Lord to appear in my chanting on my beads? Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that inattentive chanting is the cause of all other offenses. One is inattentive because his mind is attracted to other things, to material desires. One is lazy. The quota of chanting assigned by the *guru* becomes difficult to complete because of lack of taste. When I gave *the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* class this morning, I tried for jokes. The audience is easy to provoke into laughter, but mine were serious little jokes—laughing at our foibles in attentive chanting. Much of the humor was at my own expense; it was a veiled account of me as a jaundiced, inattentive chanter. Rūpa Gosvāmī says that the essence of all advice is to chant and hear twenty-four hours a day and to live in Vṛndāvana, Kṛṣṇa's abode. How can we all run to Vṛndāvana when we have Prabhupāda's charge to spread his mission? Rūpa Gosvāmī tells us, then, to live in Vṛndāvana in our minds. * * * Water running outdoors. Devotees bathe in the backyard, drawing rain water from a tank. Roosters crow. Last night, I heard a man in the neighborhood crying out for help. Last night’s flowers are wilted. I can hear devotees chanting their beads next door and in the room below this one—a beehive of chanters. Tomorrow we travel to New Pānihāṭi, our Guyana farm, in Berbice. The journey takes three and a half hours, maybe four, depending on how long we have to wait for the ferry. The ferry people publish schedules, but devotees don’t consult them because the real schedules are so erratic. * * * Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long for the ferry. Guyana is a nation of blacks and Hindus. A few tired-looking whites board the ferry, possibly businessmen or missionaries. Two men and a woman carry onto the ferry a varnished coffin. By their casual behavior, I assume it’s empty. The lady uses the coffin as a seat. On the way to the ferry I read *Vilāpa-kusumā-jali* by Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī. I felt the presence of Rūpa Gosvāmī, the land of Vṛndāvana, the hopes expressed by the author. “For me, somehow, the present moment is flooded by a nectar ocean of many hopes. If You [Rādhārāṇī] do not give Your mercy, then what use to me are this life, the land of Vṛndāvana, and Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the enemy of Baka? … If You will not give Your great mercy to suffering me, then what is the use of all the worlds?” As we travel out on the dark waters, I think of how the River Yamunā is often described as dark. Yamunā and Kṛṣṇa are the dark color called *śyāma.* I look up and a pair of eyes are examining me, curious about what I am doing. I look the other way over the steel boat rails to my dark Yamunā. * * * We arrived at New Pānihāṭi and saw the beautiful forms of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Rādhā-Gokulacandra. Rādhārāṇī offers blessings to the devotees with Her upraised hand. I would like to encourage the devotees to stick to the poor earth of Berbice, where the canal runs by the front door and the jungle is just off in the distance. This can all be Vṛndāvana because the center of their lives is service to Rādhā-Gokulacandra. This canal can be the flowing Yamunā and the jungle can be the forest of Vṛndāvana. And the mosquitoes? Well, it takes a little imagination. Or rather, it takes meditation and determination. Kṛṣṇa says, “For one who always remembers Me without deviation, I am easy to obtain … because of his constant engagement in devotional service” (*Bhagavad-gītā* 8.14). In the purport, Śrīla Prabhupāda says a devotee serves, anywhere and anytime, without impediments. “Some say that the devotee should remain in holy places like Vṛndāvana, … but a pure devotee can live anywhere and create the atmosphere of Vṛndāvana by his devotional service.” Toward the end of my lecture, the western horizon blazed red. The sun was setting in what seemed a small area of the sky. Flat against the land, the sky was a deep, fiery red. The soft breeze is welcome after the day’s heat. Guyana seems so backward in some ways. This temple is in such an isolated place. Few people walk by and the canal provides a breeding ground for mosquitoes. But it is all a matter of consciousness. According to Rūpa Gosvāmī, we are meant to live in Vṛndāvana. By proper consciousness and association, we can be transported from Berbice, Guyana, to the land of Vṛndāvana. *Satsvarūpa Dāsa Goswami is the author of more than two dozen books, including a six-volume biography of Śrīla Prabhupāda.* ## Lord Kṛṣṇa's Cuisine *Cooking Class: Lesson 5 An Introduction to Capātīs* ### By Yamuna Devi The first bite of a hot *capātī* is memorable. Mine was in September 1966, at my first lunch cooked and served by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Once the vegetable, rice, and *dāl* portion of the meal was served, he proceeded to pass out a tall stack of just-off-the-flame **capātī*s*. Thin and flexible, the char-flecked wheat breads glistened with a film of sweet butter. The devotees showed me how to tear off bits of *capātī* and scoop up morsels of the accompanying dishes. The tastes were sensational, and the bread was one of the best I had ever eaten. My memory is not unique. I know few people who don't become lifetime *capātī* aficionados with their first bite. Classic Indian breads roughly fall into three categories: griddle-baked, griddle-fried, and deep-fried. Hands down, the preferred daily bread is griddle-baked, known as *capātīs*, *phulkas*, or *rotis*, depending on their thickness or size. Whole-wheat *capātīs* are the most popular. They're fairly thin and five-to-seven inches across. In India today, **capātī*s* remain close to their ancient origins. A *capātī* pantry relies on few ingredients: wholewheat flour, an assortment of other flours or grains, water or yogurt, and optional butter or ghee. The equipment: a rolling pin and a griddle. With these simple elements, you can make **capātī*s* with a vast range of flavors and textures. Once you conquer the techniques for rolling and cooking, there are no right or wrong **capātī*s*, only breads that reflect your sense of taste. Each time I teach a *capātī* class, I sense both the eagerness and the trepidation of the students. Even experienced yeast bakers are sometimes threatened by flat breads, and more than a few are frustrated with the stiff *capātī* discs gleaned from some cookbooks. I assure students that no matter what the size, shape, or thickness of their first attempts, the *capātī*s will be mouthwatering. To introduce students to some of the subtlety of the art of classic *capātī* cookery, I often relate the following pastime of Śrīla Prabhupāda. In India, a cook's skill is often judged by the preparation of flat breads. My first apprenticeship *capātī* test was in the fall of 1972, while residing in Vrndavana, just above Śrīla Prabhupāda's rooms in the Rādhā-Dāmodara Temple. Before Prabhupāda's arrival, I had prepared for the test, asking locals about the nuances of preparing a classic Vṛndāvana *capātī* called *Vraj Phulka*. I obtained a preferred strain of wheat known as Pisi Lahore—soft, plump wheat with an amber-gold hue. Ground at the local flour mill, it was fine and light, nearly bran-free, and ready for use within the next twenty-four hours. I learned that to make the *Vraj Phulka* I would have to roll the dough evenly into a paper-thin disc ten-to-twelve inches across. I would cook it on a griddle till nearly done and then rest it directly on wood embers to puff up into a balloon when done. I bought a portable cooking stove and covered it with several coats of fresh Yamunā River mud. For fuel I used Vṛndāvana's favorite fire source for flatbreads—*margosa* wood (neem) with a touch of dried cow chips. Like apple and alder, dying *margosa* embers give off an aromatic smoke treasured in bread baking. When a nearly cooked *capātī* is set on the embers to balloon, its surface is licked with fragrant smoke. The test location was in Śrīla Prabhupāda's newly refurbished kitchen. We'd tried to preserve the existing design of the room, divided by a row of bricks into a cooking area and an eating area. Two coats of white paint brightened the ceiling and walls. All preparation and cooking took place on the immaculate pinkish-grey sandstone floor. When Śrīla Prabhupāda entered his kitchen, its sparseness was filled with his presence, and he smiled in appreciation. He commented on everything from the clay water jugs to the newly stenciled *mahā-mantra* that circled the room near the ceiling. Before taking his seat on the floor, he gazed out the window toward the *samādhi* tomb of Rūpa Gosvāmī and folded his hands in respect. Within moments I served him the meal and a hot *capātī*. With the first bite of the *capātī*, he noted, "You have everything right. It is Pisi Lahore, milled yesterday, and the neem gives it special distinction. One thing, cook it for one or two seconds more on the griddle, then it will be perfect." I was stunned by his perceptive critique. (This was the first in a series of critiques of my cooking, and he always amazed me by his knowledge of the subject.) For me, few tasks have been more satisfying than cooking these *capātīs* and having Srila Prabhupāda relish them. No matter what your degree of involvement with **capātī*s*, it will be satisfying. I recommend that you become familiar with both hands-on and food-processor doughs. I'm not including *capātī* recipes in this short column; there is too much important information to impart. If you are following the cooking class, read and study the section on griddle-baked breads from the textbook, *Lord Krishna's Cuisine*, and experiment with two or three recipes. If you decide to make a quantity, you can wrap and freeze them, and when you need them, thaw and flame-toast. The recipe below is a formula for delicious sandwiches, and the possibilities are endless. For more traditional fare, try *kicchari* or dry-textured vegetable *capātī* roll-ups with a fresh chutney as a side accent. Get creative with your favorite ingredients. *Capātī Roll-Up Sandwiches* (Makes 6) 6 *capātīs* 3/4 cup creamed avocado, seasoned chickpea puree, or herbed yogurt cheese 1/2 cup diced sun-dried tomatoes, diced roasted bell peppers, diced fresh tomatoes, or diced cucumber 2–3 cups sprouts, shredded spinach, or romaine or leaf lettuce 2–3 cups finely shredded carrots or red or Chinese cabbage 1/2 cup tomato chutney or salsa Rest a *capātī* on a cookie rack and hold the rack over a burner on high heat. Warm 10 to 15 seconds on each side, until the *capātī* puffs slightly or balloons, with char-flecks dotting the surface. (Do not let it harden or burn). Set it aside in a warm towel. Warm the rest of the *capātī*s the same way. Lay the **capātī*s* on a work surface. Spread each one with chickpea puree, avocado, or cheese. Just below center of each *capātī*, lay rows of your selected items end to end across the *capātī*. Dot with chutney or salsa. Tuck the end of the *capātī* over the fillings and roll it up tightly into a jelly roll. Serve or wrap tightly in plastic. *Yamuna Devi is the author of* Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking *and is a regular contributor to* The Washington Post. ## Schooling Kṛṣṇa's Children *Now Can We Work Together?* ### By Śrī Rāma Dāsa SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR Burke Rochford told me, “No religious movement has ever survived when it lost its second generation.” Śrīla Prabhupāda had high expectations for ISKCON’s second generation. He envisioned their taking roles of leadership in the movement. Yet if what he wanted is actually to happen, ISKCON must develop a clear path students can follow to become part of adult ISKCON society—and so far the path has been rocky. We teach philosophy fairly well. But when, say, a fourteen-year-old student thinks about what he's going to do with it—what sort of work or service he might take up as his future career—ISKCON may seem to have little to offer. We’re a long way from the occupational training Śrīla Prabhupāda envisioned. This educational gap (among our other shortcomings) leaves many of our young people feeling disconnected from ISKCON—and often misunderstood and unwanted. Although ISKCON may be getting better at addressing their needs, if we’re making progress we’re making it slowly—and kids grow up fast. Some of our young people, therefore, have begun to organize themselves through newsletters and *gurukula* school reunions. The events of the *gurukula* reunion in Los Angeles last August took everyone a bit by surprise. After the Rathayātrā festival, large and small groups of devotees from ISKCON’s first and second generations met to discuss the difficulties of growing up in ISKCON. Most exciting to me: When the talking was over, we had a program of action to benefit our whole society of devotees. Gopī Dāsī, a former *gurukula* student in her early twenties, tells of the details: *Project Future Hope* The day after Rathayātrā, the North American ISKCON Board of Education met, and they asked members of the second generation, or *gurukula* alumni, to talk. No one on either side was prepared for the candidness of the speakers. The young people spoke from the heart. More important, the adults *heard* and began to understand exactly what it meant to be raised in an ISKCON *gurukula*. On the other hand, former students began to sense that ISKCON leaders were not impersonal or uncaring. Leaders admitted mistakes, apologized, and expressed a sincere desire to help. I don’t think anyone was untouched after hearing the sincere expressions from all sides. Far and away, Vaiṣṇava Dāsa’s description of *gurukula* life and his vision of the future was the most moving. What echoes most in my mind are his words “I don’t agree with the way the seeds of our training were planted, but they’re there, and there’s no way around it.” What parent or student can’t relate to that? *Now we have to act.* Śrī Rāma Dāsa later summed up his perceptions: “How do we make the best of things and move on to a better future? Since we lack much centralized structure right now, common sense seems to dictate we solve our problems person to person. Put open and intelligent adults and young people together, and the association will bridge the gaps.” Following the main meeting were two days of intense smaller meetings. We worked to find a way both generations could work together. This evolved into Project Future Hope, a system for connecting former *gurukula* students—now potential apprentices and employees—with devotee teachers and employers. Someone has given a computer, and a programmer is already organizing the personal networking—the essence of Project Future Hope. When I mentioned these meetings to some of my peers, I got the usual response: “Sure, but it’s all talk. Nothing will come of it.” We all grew up with some skepticism, and in a sense I feel it’s healthy. I like to consider myself somewhat of a cynic. It keeps you on your toes. So devotees of the first generation have quite a job convincing us of their sincerity. But some of them did in those few days in August. It’s a first step down a long road. *Afterword (Śrī Rāma Dāsa)* Many of our young people feel let down that their education was so short of the high ideal they were taught to expect. So I can appreciate the cynicism. But Project Future Hope is unique in that it’s not one-sided. It’s a joint venture of the Gurukula Alumni Association, the North American Board of Education, and the ISKCON GBC Board of Education. Bahulāśva Dāsa, aged twenty-two and head of the Gurukula Alumni Association, is chairman of the Project. Now members of both generations have decided to work together. Success or failure will be equally shared. Either way, we will grow closer. If you would like to take part in Project Future Hope in any way, please write: Project Future Hope, Box 1126, Culver City, CA 90223. *Śrī Rāma is Chairman of ISKCON's Board of Education. His new address: Box 91, 125284 Moscow, Russia.* ## The Land, the Cows, and Kṛṣṇa *Ox Power or Horse Power?* ### By Hare Kṛṣṇa Devī Dāsī SUPPLIES OF PETROLEUM are dwindling, and that poses a special problem for farming. In his book *Family Farming,* Marty Strange summarizes a study at the University of New Hampshire: By 2020, domestic supplies of both oil and gas will be depleted, and if agriculture’s technological base does not shift, 10 percent of the oil and 60 percent of natural gas consumed in the United States soon after that will be used in food production.… A farming system so dependent on fossil fuels can’t last forever—not even for long. Our recent experience in Kuwait shows that military needs and destruction of resources could exhaust supplies of fossil fuel even sooner than we once thought. Nearly a decade before Saddam Hussein ordered retreating Iraqi troops to torch the oil wells of Kuwait, Marty Bender considered the problem of dependence on fossil fuel and proposed an alternative. In an article called “Industrial Versus Biological Traction on the Farm,” he wrote, “It is estimated that the United States has three decades of petroleum and natural gas reserves at the current level of production. We will then have to rely mostly on foreign imports of petroleum until the world’s reserves are depleted in another generation or two.…” He suggested, “By 2013, the United States should try to have a sizable population of working horses and mules … if we are to have a food supply that does not require importing foreign fuels.” Articles like this acknowledge the critical vulnerability of farms powered by petroleum, but often the remedy proposed is farms powered by the horse. So we may ask, how does horse-powered farming fit in with the development of spiritual communities? *“Where Are the Oxen?”* Our first clue comes from Śrīla Prabhupāda. Paramānanda Dāsa, a disciple, once told how devotees tried to impress Prabhupāda with their efforts toward self-sufficiency. During one of Prabhupāda's first visits to a West Virginia farm, they harnessed a team of horses and showed him how they could work the animals. Prabhupāda responded: “Where are the oxen?” For Paramānanda, that was the end of working horses. From that moment his interest shifted to oxen. Not only would horses deprive oxen of rightful employment, but as Prabhupāda was well aware, horses are temperamental, and their health can be shaky. So when one devotee wrote him about buying a horse to get around on the farm, Śrīla Prabhupāda advised against it: “If you keep horses you have to take care of them, and for a little convenience of transportation you have to take so much botheration to keep the horse fit.” *From the Battlefield to the Farm* Before the horse, in most countries the ox was the main animal used for plowing. For the battlefield, passion and speed made the horse better suited. In “What Pulls the Plow?” an article in *Country Journal,* Ronald Jager writes, “The English Great Horse, immortalized in legend and art, was not a draft animal but originally a war horse, large, fast, strong for armor bearing, and high-strung.” As the Medieval Crusades came to an end and the horse collar was invented, people found that horses could plow land faster than oxen. So in northern Europe horses began to push the ox off the farm. The transition was not without debate, however, and writers from Walter of Henley in the 1200’s to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert in the 1500’s spoke out in favor of the ox. (In the New World in the 1700’s, Ben Franklin continued to argue for the ox.) Oxen, they pointed out, “produced better manure, were cheaper to keep, were more versatile, and were often healthier than horses.” Sir Anthony concluded, “All thyngs consydered, the ploughe of oxen is moche more profytable than the ploughe of horses.” Central to Sir Anthony’s argument was this: During idle winter months, oxen could live on hay alone, but horses “must haue both hey and corne to eate.” So horses were far more costly. But despite the extra cost, on European farms the horse gradually won out. *Society Shifts to the Mode of Passion* One topic absent from the dialogue of the time was the effect of horse power in transforming society from rural to urban. But modern scholars have picked up on the shift in social structure: The invention of the horse collar and traces literally revolutionized the power situation on European farms.… Modern European agriculture made it possible for a farmer to produce much more than any farmer had ever produced before. For the first time in the history of mankind it became possible for the urban population of a region to exceed the rural population, because, for the first time, one farmer could produce more than enough to feed his own family and another family in the city. As we have described in this column before, horse power set in motion the urbanization that helped bring on the industrial revolution. Although this chain of events is often applauded as a sign of progress, it has degraded our environment and our society. The fact is, horse power was an important step away from a simple rural life in the mode of goodness. *The Only Nonviolent Choice* Another argument against horse power, lost on contemporary scholars, is implicit in Prabhupāda's remark “Where are the oxen?” The bull calf is an automatic by-product of milk production, and unless the bull is productively engaged, economic necessity says he must be slaughtered. From time to time we hear admiration expressed for several old-fashioned religious groups who rely largely on horse power. For anyone in touch with these groups, it is apparent they are very pious people. Beyond that, they are expert in numberless details of self-sufficiency which they are kind enough to share with neighboring Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees. Unfortunately, however, their gentleness cannot be complete with their present system of farming. Because the bull has no job on their farms, they have to cut his throat. This was brought home to me at Gītā Nāgarī, our Pennsylvania farm, which the devotees bought in the 1970’s from an Amish dairy farmer. There the building we used as a shed for garden tools was formerly a smoke house for the meat of slaughtered cattle. *Not Enough Horses? Try Oxen* Using horses for farming means bulls must be killed. Inverse corollary: If you don’t have enough horses, you can use oxen. This idea seems to have slipped by Marty Bender. He advocated (in 1984) that the U.S. should at once begin breeding its eight million recreational horses and mules into twenty-five million working horses and mules. But according to 1990 statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. has ninety-nine million cattle and calves, from which fifty million oxen could easily be bred in just one year. If trained, they could be out working the fields in just two years more. So why go out of our way to breed more workhorses when the energy-efficient, disease-resistant ox is so readily at hand? *But Don’t Wait Too Long* With about a hundred million cattle, you might think we needn’t worry about having enough oxen to work. But we have to see this figure in perspective. With prices rising for land, fuel, and chemical inputs, the number of cattle in the U.S. has dropped steadily for the past couple of decades. In 1975 we had 132 million cattle; in 1980, 111 million; in 1985, 110 million; and in 1990, 99 million. During an energy crisis, as we have mentioned before, farmers send more cows to the slaughterhouse. So we don’t have unlimited time to train oxen as an energy alternative. *Father Bull or Father Horse?* The final argument in favor of ox power over horse power is subtle, but should not be overlooked. According to Vedic literature, when a spirit soul comes to earth to take a human body he first takes the form of grain. So whoever plows the field is in a sense the first father of a human being. For most of us born in the countries of the West, our original father was Father Tractor, so it’s not surprising we are easily enamored of machines. Even the horse, a passionate animal used for war, cannot be the best father for human society. The ideal father is Father Bull, the embodiment of religion, the very symbol of goodness. Part of the reason Father Bull can raise the best human beings is not so mystical as it may seem. A society that depends on the bull for growing grains must be centered in the country, the place most favorable to spiritual life. And when cows are protected the human father will naturally be a gentle man, satisfied with living simply and working honestly for Kṛṣṇa. He’ll be a man who works at home and shares in bringing up his children. And that gives a human being a most fortunate start on the journey back home, back to Godhead. The Cubans saw the logic of ox power. To make up for some of the petroleum they no longer get from the Soviet Union, they developed a nationwide program to train 400,000 oxen for transport and farming. Unintentionally, no doubt, they rescued those 400,000 animals from the slaughterhouse, at least for the time being—an example that devotees in the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement should take as a challenge to surpass. It may be that Kṛṣṇa wants to reciprocate with Cuba’s unintended efforts toward cow protection: Devotees are now proposing an ox-cart Padayātrā to bring the holy name through Cuba. *Hare Kṛṣṇa Devī Dāsī has been an ISKCON devotee since 1978. She spent several years on the Gītā Nāgarī Farm in Pennsylvania. She now lives in Maine. Her address: 9B Stetson St., Brunswick, ME 04011.* ## Science: The Vedic View *World Views: Vedic vs. Western* ### By Sadāpūta Dāsa In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, European scholars and scientists began to come in contact with the culture of India. Many were impressed by the antiquity of Vedic civilization and the deep spiritual and material knowledge contained in the Vedic literature. But other European intellectuals were dismayed by these developments. For example, in 1825 the British scholar John Bentley wrote of his conflict with the scientist John Playfair, who was an admirer of Indian culture: By his [Playfair’s] attempt to uphold the antiquity of Hindu books against absolute facts, he thereby supports all those horrid abuses and impositions found in them, under the pretended sanction of antiquity.… Nay, his aim goes still deeper; for by the same means he endeavors to overturn the Mosaic account, and sap the very foundation of our religion: for if we are to believe in the antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a fable, or a fiction.1 For Bentley, a devout Christian, the matter was simple. The Mosaic account in the Bible says that the earth was created in about 4004 B.C., and it completely contradicts the Vedic scriptures. Therefore, either the Bible or the Vedic scriptures must be false. Bentley and pioneer Indologists such as Sir William Jones and Max Muller worked hard, and quite successfully, to convince people that the Vedic scriptures are nothing but fables and fiction. They started a school of thought that is solidly established in modern universities, both in Western countries and in India itself. One of the teachings of this school is that all Vedic literature, from the *Ṛg Veda* to the *Purāṇas,* is essentially a fraudulent concoction written in recent times. In the early days of Indology, writers such as Bentley openly expressed the opinion that the authors of the Vedic scriptures were impostors, cheaters, and superstitious fools. Today scholars customarily express these conclusions in moderate language, which often gives the impression that they are favorably disposed toward Vedic culture. But the conclusions are the same. For example, Clifford Hospital teaches at Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada, and he has been principal of the Theological College since 1983. In a recent interview conducted by the Vaiṣṇava scholar Steven Rosen, he discusses the date of the *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam*: Steven Rosen: And it [the **Bhāgavata*m*] predates Vopadeva? Dr. Hospital: Oh yes. Absolutely. On a separate note, though, what’s interesting about their [J. A. B. van Buitenen’s and Friedholm Hardy’s] work is that they do a detailed analysis about the relation between certain parts of the *Bhāgavata* and the South Indian Ālvār tradition. I think they make a very good case for what people have long suspected: that many of the ideas of the *Bhāgavata* are coming out of the South Indian tradition. The point here is that if many of the ideas of the *Bhāgavatam* come from the medieval Ālvār tradition of South India, then the *Bhāgavatam* was not composed five thousand years ago by Vyāsadeva. Since the text of the *Bhāgavatam* says that it was composed by Vyāsadeva, Dr. Hospital’s comment is tantamount to saying that the real author of the *Bhāgavatam* was a fraud. But Dr. Hospital says it nicely, without using harsh language. All Indologists, historians, and archaeologists in modern universities agree that there was no civilization in the Ganges basin of India five thousand years ago. To say that there was such a civilization is considered utterly indefensible. This means that no modern-day scholar can say that the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa recounted in the *Bhāgavatam* and the *Mahābhārata* really happened. According to accepted scholarly conclusions, the civilization in which those pastimes are said to have occurred simply did not exist. The stories of that civilization are mythological and were gradually invented over the centuries, beginning with early versions of the *Mahābhārata* in the third century B.C. and culminating in the *Bhāgavatam* in perhaps the ninth century A.D. Indologists often say that ancient Indians were content with fables and had no interest in recording history. Yet some traditional Vedic scholars strongly disagree with this. For example, Pandit Kota Vankatachela has written a book giving an unbroken sequence of kings of Māgadha from the time of the *Mahābhārata* up to the invasion of India by Muhammad Ghori in 1193 A.D. He uses the *Purāṇas* and related Sanskrit texts to give dates for the reigns of these kings. The table on page 18 lists the kings and the dates of their reigns, from Jarāsandha to the dynasty of Candragupta Maurya. According to Vankatachela’s presentation, recorded history in India extends all the way back from the Middle Ages to the time of the battle of Kurukṣetra. But his dates disagree with accepted scholarly conclusions. For example, note that the dates for the reign of Candragupta Maurya are 1534–1500 B.C. According to the Indologists, Candragupta Maurya was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, who invaded India in 326 B.C. They would reject Vankatachela’s list of kings as largely fictitious. What is the truth? To find out with reasonable certainty requires extensive research. Indologists have written hundreds of books and scholarly articles expounding their views, and these need to be carefully studied. Historical information is found in many Sanskrit texts, including major and minor *Purāṇas,* commentaries on *Purāṇas,* and related works. Other sources should also be researched—temple records, *jyotiṣa* *śāstras,* calendrical records, the works of traditional *paṇḍitas* such as Vankatachela, and finally, archaeological evidence and records from other ancient civilizations. One of the key stratagems of the early Indologists was to use science as a weapon to show the absurdity of Vedic scriptures. They observed that to break people’s faith in the philosophical and metaphysical teachings of the scriptures is difficult, since these involve subjects beyond the reach of our senses. But by showing that the scriptures give an unscientific account of observable natural phenomena, Indologists could make people lose faith in all scriptural teachings. Bentley made this point in connection with the science of astronomy: It is by the investigation of truth, and the exposure of Brahminical impositions, which can only be done through the means of astronomy, that the labours of those who are laudably endeavoring to introduce true religion and morality [i.e. Christianity] among the Hindus can have their true and beneficial effect. So long as the impositions and falsehoods contained in the Hindu books, which the common people are made to believe are the productions of their ancient sages, are suffered to remain unexposed, little progress can be expected to be made: but let the veil be withdrawn, uncover the impositions by true and rational investigation, and the cloud of error will of itself disappear; and then they will be not only more ready, but willing to adopt and receive the word of truth.4 Since Bentley’s time, Indologists have tried hard to show that Indian astronomy consists of unscientific ideas originating in India, and misrepresented scientific ideas borrowed from the Greeks and the Babylonians. We can argue that this is not correct, but much research is needed. A beginning has been made with the publication of our book *Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy.* As it turned out, the strategy of using science to discredit the Vedic scriptures backfired. Science was also used to discredit Christianity. As a result, many of today’s Indologists tend to take a secular stance, and reject the Vedic literature as false, not because it disagrees with Christianity, but because it disagrees with fundamental tenets of modern science. Likewise, instead of becoming ready to receive the Christian “word of truth,” college-educated people in India now accept the mechanistic world view of modern science. The impact of modern scientific thinking on people’s understanding of Vedic literature is shown by the following remarks by Dr. H. Daniel Smith, a professor of religion at Syracuse University. He comments on the *Rāmāyaṇa:* Dr. Smith: Well, to get right down to basics, it has to do with how one understands the word *avatāra*, more specifically, in what sense, if any, the *avatāra* of Rāma was historical. If so, when? If so, where? Steven Rosen: They say Tretā-yuga. Dr. Smith: That’s the answer given. And the literalists can even give a date, in July or something of such-and-such a year. And that’s fine for the believer—but it’s only one of several possible perspectives. You see, it’s that literalist commitment to the historicity of it—just as Christians are absolutely committed to the historicity of Jesus—that is at the crux of the matter. Steven Rosen: Right. Dr. Smith: Just as many Christians affirm that Jesus really did exist in Jerusalem in the year One, also many Hindus say with the **Rāmāyaṇa*:* Rāma really did exist, and he lived in Ayodhyā, and when he went, he went out to Laṅkā, and there he fought and defeated Rāvaṇa and laid low all the Rākṣasa hosts. Now that’s a real tight bind that people put themselves in. Whereas on the other hand, another way of dealing with it is to say that it is all a myth. Now please don’t misunderstand me: this view doesn’t necessarily hold that the story is fictional; what it says is that the *Rāmāyaṇa* is telling a story that doesn’t have to be taken literally on all counts, and that it is basically a story, if nothing else, that tells us quite a bit about human nature. Steven Rosen: And some believers take it like that? Dr. Smith: Oh, indeed. Quite a few Hindus share that perspective—not many but there are definitely those who do. For example, how do college educated Hindus deal with it? Well some, to be sure, just go back to their childhoods, saying, ’Oh Rāma. Bless Rāma.’ Others, however, do try to think in terms of mythic meaning, and try to probe for deep, psychological references in their own experiences. Note the attempt to soften the blow: A myth is not necessarily fictional; it’s just a story that doesn’t have to be taken literally and that tells us something about human nature. The reasons Smith gives for calling the *Rāmāyaṇa* a myth are significant. First, there is the problem of saying that Lord Rāmacandra lived in Ayodhyā in the Tretā-yuga. This is ruled out by the Darwinian theory of evolution, which says that in that time period, more than 864,000 years ago, there were no humans of the modern type. Careful research, however, can reveal evidence contrary to the accepted scientific view and in agreement with the Vedic picture. Drutakarmā Dāsa and I have just completed a 900-page book, *Forbidden Archeology,* which gives extensive evidence showing that human beings of the modern type have been living on the earth for many millions of years. Another problem raised by Smith is that if we take the *Rāmāyaṇa* literally, then we are obliged to accept the existence of beings such as Rākṣasas, endowed with remarkable mystical powers. Smith refers to the world of the *Rāmāyaṇa* as a “Walt Disney world” of fantasy—a world that scientifically educated people can hardly take seriously. This problem applies to all the Vedic literature, which presents a view of reality that assumes the existence of mystic powers, beings with subtle bodies, transmigration of souls, and *avatāras* of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This too is an area where the findings of careful research support the Vedic world view. A great deal of evidence in the domain of the paranormal supports the reality of subtly embodied beings and mystic powers. Official science tends to reject this evidence because it violates accepted theories. Theoretical frameworks can change, however, and many eminent scientists have seriously studied paranormal phenomena. Research findings in the domain of the paranormal fit consistently into the Vedic world view. They give empirical support to the reality of the Vedic picture, and the Vedic literature provides a rational, scientific framework for understanding paranormal phenomena. ### References 1. Bentley, John, 1825, *Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy,* Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag, reprinted in 1970, p. xxvii. 2. Rosen, Steven, 1992, *Vaiṣṇavism: Contemporary Scholars Discuss the Gauḍīya Tradition,* New York: Folk Books, p. 71. 3. Vankatachela, Kota, 1957, *Chronology of Ancient Hindu History,* Arya Vijnana Grandhamala. 4. Bentley, p. 213. 5. Pingree, David, 1976, “The Recovery of Early Greek Astronomy from India,” *Journal of the History of Astronomy,* pp. 109–23. 6. Thompson, Richard, 1989, *Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy,* Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 7. Rosen, p. 42. 8. Cremo, Michael, and Thompson, Richard, 1992, *Forbidden Archeology,* San Diego: Bhaktivedanta Institute. 9. Drake, Stillman, 1978, *Galileo at Work,* Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. *Sadāpūta Dāsa (Richard L. Thompson) earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell University. He is the author of several books, of which the most recent is* Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy. ## Bhakti-yoga at Home *Devotees and Health* ### By Rohiṇīnandana Dāsa WHEN I FIRST LIVED in a Hare Kṛṣṇa temple, another new devotee, Bhakta Michael, won my admiration for his complete neglect of his health and hygiene. I had learned that the self was different from the body, but not knowing how to apply that understanding, I thought Bhakta Michael must be an advanced soul. As I read Śrīla Prabhupāda's writings, however, and understood more about the real transcendentalist’s attitude toward the body, I gave up my admiration for abuse in the guise of detachment. Prabhupāda would sign his letters, “I hope this meets you in good health.” He was concerned that his disciples led a healthy life, including cleanliness, exercise, and a proper diet. When an early disciple became ill, Prabhupāda advised him, “Your first business is to look after your health, because if you don’t feel well everything will be topsy-turvy.” He would sometimes tell sick devotees to suspend work and take complete rest. Sometimes Prabhupāda would recommend special diets, which might include barley, fruit, milk, or raw cereals soaked in water overnight. Diet, after all, can be the mother of either health or disease. Prabhupāda also gave medical advice for conditions ranging from a toothache or an infected finger to constipation or jaundice. If an illness was serious he suggested consulting “some approved physician.” To one disciple, who was making money for Kṛṣṇa through business, Prabhupāda wrote, “You must have the best kind of treatment available, and you can spend from the money you are collecting on behalf of Krishna.” As for surgical operations, he was wary. As far as possible, he said, operations should be avoided. But “when there is no alternative, of course we have to take shelter of such demonic treatment.” Prabhupāda said that his own body was “a broken old house.” He would often say he could pass away at any moment. But he wanted his disciples to live for a long time “to push on this Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” Above all Śrīla Prabhupāda advised his disciples to depend upon Lord Kṛṣṇa. “Actually, medicine is not the remedial measure for our bodily troubles unless we are helped by Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, whenever there is bodily trouble we may adopt the prescribed methods of medical science and depend upon Kṛṣṇa for His mercy.” As we may err on the side of neglecting the body, we may also be too concerned about pampering it. As a new devotee I was impressed by the vitality of a devotee who worked at our London restaurant, then called Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise. He looked the picture of health as he chewed ginseng and punched the till keys. We lived in the same house, and I felt awed by his vibrant health. He worked out on dumbbells, humidified his bedroom by putting damp cloths on the radiator, avoided eating salt, sugar, and milk products, took a variety of vitamins and mineral supplements, and “never” got ill. Seeing my struggles with one bout of flu after another, he convinced me to try a course of vitamins. I spent £25 and didn’t notice much difference except that my urine turned bright yellow. That devotee went to live in the States, and a year later I was sorry to hear he had contracted leukemia. It took only six months for his strong body to become an uninhabitable wreck. When he died I gave up my attempt to achieve perfect health. Śrīla Prabhupāda referred to the body as *vyādhi-maṇḍiram,* “a temple of disease.” He said that as long as we have a material body there must be some kind of trouble, but because the body is external we should not be very much disturbed by it. In a lecture Prabhupāda was comparing disease to “Māyā’s agent.” Even Kṛṣṇa, he said, was attacked every day by Māyā’s agents, what to speak of Kṛṣṇa's devotees. “But,” he continued, “Kṛṣṇa promises, ‘My devotee is never vanquished,’ so therefore our business is to become His devotee. Then everything will be all right.” *Rohiṇīnandana Dāsa lives in southern England with his wife and their three children. Write to him at Woodgate Cottage, Beckley Nr. Rye, E. Sussex TN31 6UH, UK.* ## Through the Eyes of Śāstra *Disease* ### By Ravīndra Svarūpa Dāsa THE HEROES OF MY YOUTH were the great healers of humanity. While it’s true that in those days I could be seen with other American boys paying homage to the likes of Elvis Presley and Joe DiMaggio, I rendered them only lip service. My real—if somewhat secret—devotion was reserved for a pantheon of great medical pioneers like William Jenner, discoverer of the smallpox vaccination; Robert Koch, who identified the tuberculosis bacillus; and Ignaz Philipp Semmelweise, who crusaded to save women from childbirth infection by teaching doctors to disinfect their hands. I avidly studied the life stories of these saviors and dreamed of becoming like them by slaying some modern scourge—leukemia, say, or coronary thrombosis. In my eyes there was no higher calling than to wage war on behalf of humanity against disease and death. I entered college intent on medical studies, but a little over a year later abandoned that aim. I had not been fatally disheartened by my encounter with other premed students, profiteers eager to mint gold from disease. A book, rather, had destroyed my vocation and my faith. *Mirage of Health: Utopia, Progress and Biological Change* is a pioneering study of medical history written in the late fifties by a physician named Rene Dubos. His conclusion devastated me: Progress toward some utopia of health is an illusion. Disease will never be “conquered.” Disease is so inescapable a part of our human condition that today’s remedies inevitably become the agents of tomorrow’s ills. Using an abundance of historical evidence, Dubos shows how the diseases we suffer from arise out of the complex social, political, and economic dynamics of our particular society; as society changes, our ills change with it. Some diseases fade away, and others, out of the inexhaustible bounty of material nature, rise to take their place. In modern industrial societies, as Dr. Dubos points out, we no longer suffer and die from smallpox, typhus, typhoid, diphtheria, and the other microbial plagues of the past. We have made “progress”: We suffer and die instead from cancer, coronary heart disease, emphysema, and mental disorders (with their attendant drug abuse and suicide). According to Dubos’s analysis, even my boyhood heroes, those unswerving foes of deadly microbes, had little to do with the disappearance of infectious diseases. These afflictions were retired mainly by the social and economic reforms that followed industrialization. At the same time, that same process was ushering in a whole new set of scourges. And even those old diseases are by no means “conquered,” Dubos warns. They are merely held at bay (at a high price), and they can reenter human history any time the conditions are right. I was undone by Dr. Dubos’s lesson. Medicine at once underwent a catastrophic devaluation in my eyes. I wondered why that should be. Dubos, of course, never claimed that medicine was useless, a waste of time. True, it may not save humanity, but it can save humans. That ought to be enough, I argued with myself. I could still live by ideals, modest though those ideals might be. Surely, real heroism lies in doing humbly what little good one can, without some fantasy of wide-screen, Hollywood heroics, soundtrack booming in the background. Be realistic: There are no saviors of humanity, because humanity will not be saved, and that’s that. Still, I could revive no enthusiasm for medicine. The truth of the matter was that at heart I badly wanted to be saved from disease and death altogether, and I had possessed a real faith that scientific progress would, at the end of its struggle, win just that for all of us. To me it had been a foregone conclusion that through science and technology nature would be eventually conquered and tamed, made entirely serviceable to us, and we would live without worries in a manmade paradise on earth. Although I had never spelled out this conviction to myself, it had insensibly become my true faith, my religion. How was it a religion? Religion and science—like faith and knowledge—are supposed to be opposites. Yet somehow science itself had be-come a religion—call it “scientism”—an ardent faith that progress in science and technology will so improve upon man and nature as to rid earthly life of all ills. This religion was—and still is—the true faith of America, the spiritual motor that drives its enterprises. Where had I absorbed this religion? I had bowed before no altar, recited no creed, sung no hymns, enacted no rites. However, this religion does not need special buildings or ceremonies. As the true religion of America, it is woven completely into the fabric of life. I had absorbed it all along from my parents and teachers and friends, from the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts, from museums and theme parks, from *My Weekly Reader* and *Reader’s Digest* and *Life* and *Post* and *Popular Mechanics.* I had soaked it in from “Meet Mr. Wizard” and the unending iteration of corporate commercial slogans (“Progress is Our Most Important Product” and “Better Things For Better Living Through Chemistry”), from the biographies of my medical heroes, not the least from my hoard of science-fiction paperbacks. The faith that formed America was a creation of the so-called Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Eager to extend Newton’s success in describing nature in rational, mathematical form, a coterie of European thinkers battled to dethrone traditional religion and morality and replace them with empirical science and natural reason as the valid guides for human activity. Unenlightened and superstitious Christians believed in a future millennium, a thousand-year kingdom of God on earth that would start with the prophesied second coming of Christ. That belief had to go. Yet the savants of the Enlightenment replaced it with their own secularized faith, their manmade millennium: Steady progress in science and enlightened reason would gradually bring the natural and human world totally under rational scientific control. Nature and society will be consummately engineered. Free from drought and flood, poverty and crime, disease and even death, man will have established on earth the kingdom of God—without God. This was my faith, and I had lost it. Science would not save us; there was no “progress.” That explained my strong reaction to *Mirage of Health.* In the years since I read that book I have come to recognize the striving for release from material nature, the struggle against disease and death, as profoundly and essentially human. It’s a struggle we cannot avoid. Even though we may be unaware of it, it drives and shapes our lives. For this reason, even popular culture is about serious things. It is not mere whimsy that leads people to describe Joe DiMaggio as a baseball “Immortal,” or makes them believe that Elvis Presley could not possibly have died. Operating with more sophistication, Enlightenment thinkers set themselves against religion, but they merely replaced salvation through Christ with salvation through science. They could not free themselves from the desire for transcendence, the urge to go beyond the limits of nature into everlasting life. We are all transcendentalists at heart. The problem is that most of us are foolish ones, whose various schemes for liberation are doomed from the outset. We persist in worshiping idols and gods that fail. We engineer projects for salvation that only increase our bondage. Nature can send mile-high sheets of ice flowing over continents and level cities with a twitch, yet we embark on a quixotic war to conquer her. An ant-hill has as good a shot at it as “advanced civilization.” Or consider this: Survival is the primal urge of life, and for millions of years all organisms have struggled for survival, just as we now struggle. Now, look at the record. Where are the winners? In all of history, has anyone survived? The death rate is one hundred percent. It is a foredoomed attempt, but we cannot help ourselves. We must be transcendentalists, but what makes us invest and reinvest in foolish, impractical schemes? Let me suggest the reason. At the root of our foolishness lies a dumb insistence in trying to actuate a self-contradiction, make real an absurdity: We want to transcend material nature, become free from her control, while at the same time we want to continue to enjoy and exploit her. This was the answer I discovered. After my crisis of faith, I studied philosophy and religion for years; it was, in effect, a quest for successful transcendentalists. And I thought that I had finally discovered them at the vital center of the great spiritual traditions of the world. In spite of their differences in culture and style, they seemed unanimous in this: They agreed that to succeed in transcendence we must become free from the mentality of enjoyment and exploitation. All of them recognized the systematic endeavor to gain mastery over the mind and senses, to extinguish material desires, as necessary for real salvation or liberation of the spirit. These successful transcendentalists understand very well that material nature binds and controls us precisely through our desire to enjoy and exploit her. That desire is, therefore, our ultimate disease. Cure that disease, we shall become free from disease and death altogether. Eight years after Dr. Dubos destroyed my faith in material progress, Śrīla Prabhupāda initiated me into the path of *bhakti-yoga,* transcendental devotional service. I was attracted by the magisterial way Śrīla Prabhupāda exposed what he called “the illusory advancement of civilization.” On the street a Kṛṣṇa devotee had handed me a tract containing these simple but impressive words of Śrīla Prabhupāda: “We are trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but actually we are becoming more and more entangled in her complexities. Therefore, although we are engaged in a hard struggle to conquer nature, we are ever more dependent on her. This illusory struggle against material nature can be stopped at once by revival of our eternal Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” Śrīla Prabhupāda hadn’t done the research of a Dr. Dubos, but somehow he understood it all. His clarity astonished me. Attacking the idols of scientific progress and other ersatz religions, Śrīla Prabhupāda did not compromise in presenting the truth—if we want transcendence, we must become free from material desires. He was the only contemporary transcendentalist I’d encountered who did not offer any cheating religion, an accommodation with material ambitions for cheap popularity among the foolish. My heroes still are those saviors who wage war on behalf of humanity against disease and death: Śrīla Prabhupāda, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, Ṭhākura Haridāsa, Madhvācārya, Nārada Muni, and many others form my pantheon. These heroes have won the war against death because they have mastered the actual science of transcendence and delivered it to humanity. In the meantime I credit Dr. Dubos with a good deal of prescience. Events have proven him uncannily accurate. Even as researchers in high-tech laboratories feverishly sought the “magic bullet” to destroy cancer, a brand-new plague erupted, surprising almost everyone. Studies predict that Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome will have claimed about 400 million lives by the middle of the next century. Like horror films that spawn even more ghastly sequels, some old-fashioned diseases have begun staging spectacular revivals: A new, drug-resistant version of Koch’s bacillus threatens a tuberculosis epidemic in North America, where a remake of the scarlet fever microbe is implicated in a run of deadly cases of sudden, massive septicemia. Pediatricians report a steady rise in children with chronic bronchitis and asthma, apparently the result of pollution. Indeed, a family of new afflictions of the immune system, all apparently related to manmade chemicals in the environment, has led to the establishment of a new medical specialty called clinical ecology. Some studies show that in the industrial nations up to forty percent of all diseases are “iatrogenetic.” That means “caused by physicians.” In Pittsburgh recently, a man survived seventy-one days on an implanted baboon’s liver, which was still in good shape at autopsy. Transplant technicians are planning farms where genetically engineered animals will grow crops of organs for use in humans; biomedical engineers are machining body parts out of space-age plastics and microchips. They’re promising immortality by the end of the next century. *Ravīndra Svarūpa Dāsa, ISKCON’s Governing Body Commissioner for the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, lives at the Philadelphia temple, where he joined ISKCON in 1971. He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Temple University.* ## On Pilgrimage > Chitrakut—Lord Rāma’s Forest Home ### Though exiled from His kingdom, Lord Rāmacandra lived happily in this beautiful holy place. ### By Bhakti Vikāśa Swami LORD RĀMACANDRA LIVED for twelve years in the Chitrakut forest with His wife, Sītā Devī, and His brother Lakṣmaṇa. The story of how they came here and what they did is recounted in the *Rāmāyaṇa.* Rāma was exiled to the forest for fourteen years. When He first entered the forest with Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā, He asked Bharadvāja Muni where they should stay. The Muni advised them to go to Chitrakut, about ten miles from his *āśrama.* The *ṛṣis* in Chitrakut had been praying that Rāma would come there. They had been thinking, “The world is full of disturbances, especially from the Rākṣasas (man-eaters). If Rāma stays in Ayodhyā, how will He fulfill His mission of killing all the demons?” When Rāma came to Chitrakut, Rākṣasas were spoiling the peaceful atmosphere of the place by attacking the *ṛṣis*. So He killed many Rākṣasas during His stay there. Rāma’s brother Bharata had been away from Ayodhyā when Rāma was exiled. When Bharata returned, he learned that he was supposed to be the king in Rāma’s absence. Greatly disturbed by this news, Bharata went with a large retinue to Chitrakut to ask Rāma to come back and rule the kingdom. Today, the Rāma-Bharata Milap commemorates the spot where they met. Although Bharata was sorry about Rāma’s exile, Rāma was undisturbed. Bharata insisted again and again that Rāma should come back to Ayodhyā, and many others who had come with Bharata agreed. But Rāma repeatedly refused the kingdom. “No, I’ve given my promise to my father. That’s more important.” Finally, Rāma gave the decision over to Janaka Mahārāja, his father-in-law. Rāma said, “Janaka Mahārāja is very experienced, religious, and expert—let him decide whether I should stay here in Chitrakut and complete the term of exile or go back to Ayodhyā and take up the kingship.” Janaka Mahārāja, knowing the purpose of the Lord, said that Rāma should stay in Chitrakut. Rāma spent twelve years of His fourteen-year exile in Chitrakut. Then, for his own purpose, He went to Daṇḍakāraṇya. *A Place for Sages* *Chitrakut* means “delightful *āśrama,*” and it has long been a place of austerity. The hills and forests have many caves, providing shelter for sages and ascetics. The area is beautiful and suitable for spiritual life. The air is fresh and pure—forest air with nice winds. We went in early October. The nights and mornings were a little crisp and cool, and the daytime still a bit hot, but not unbearably so. There are big hills all around, with forests filled with singing birds and many, many monkeys. Although Lord Rāmacandra was banished to live in the forest, Chitrakut was pleasant for Him and Sītā. Even today Chitrakut is ideally situated for an ascetic life. It is distant from any major city, situated where the plains of Uttar Pradesh in northern India give way to the hills, forests, and mountains of Madhya Pradesh in central India. The present town of Chitrakut has two sections, one in Uttar Pradesh and one in Madhya Pradesh. The local people live simply and austerely. The rooms for pilgrims are extremely simple, and so is the food. Since Chitrakut is away from the big cities, the only fruits or vegetables available are those grown nearby. Chitrakut has many temples. Most are near Rāma-ghāṭa, where Lord Rāma would bathe in the Mandākinī Ganges, and around Kāmada Nāthajī Hill (“the hill of the desire-fulfilling Lord”). Most are Sītā-Rāma temples, but there are also two Nṛsiṁha temples, a few Kṛṣṇa temples, a Jagannātha-Baladeva-Subhadrā temple, and quite a few Śiva temples. It seems that about a hundred years ago there was a lot of building in Chitrakut because so many temples date from around that time. Many Mahārājas built temples here. Most of the temples are taken care of by married couples or a few *sādhus.* The arrangements for the Deities are nice, and the temples are kept neat and clean. Most of the temples have many *śālagrāmas* (a Deity in the form of a stone). The *śālagrāmas* are well-cared-for, shining with fresh *tilaka* (clay markings) every day. Temples are also at Jānakī-kuṇḍa, where Sītā, or Jānakī, would bathe. There are two Jānakī-kuṇḍas. One is at Gupta Godāvarī, and the other is three kilometers from Rāma-ghāṭa. There are quite a few *āśramas* in Chitrakut, although not as many as temples. In two *āśramas*, chanting the names of Lord Rāma goes on nonstop day and night. In one of the *āśramas* this has been going on for more than twenty-five years, and in the other, more than forty years. At one of the Jānakī-kuṇḍas, there’s an *āśrama* where about ten *sādhus* live, and twice a day they feed all the visitors who come there. On the day we went, they fed about twenty-five *sādhus* and forty other pilgrims. While taking *prasādam,* the guests hear the pastimes of Lord Rāma, as a reading goes on twenty-four hours a day. We met a schoolteacher, one of the residents of Chitrakut Dhāma, as it’s known. He was most appreciative of the spiritual qualities of the place. And like many others, he stopped to speak to us. “Those who are pure can see Rāma even today here in Chitrakut,” he said. “Rāma walking, Rāma bathing, Rāma stooping down to drink from the river … Yes. Those who are pure can still see Rāma at Chitrakut.” *Bhakti Vikāśa Swami is from England but has been teaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness in India for many years. When he’s not traveling around India writing articles for BTG (which you’ll be seeing more of in upcoming issues), he works with the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Bombay.* *Rāma Describes Chitrakut* HAVING LIVED in Chitrakut for some time, one day Lord Rāmacandra began to point out the beauty of Chitrakut to Sītā Devī: “O Fortunate Princess, when I behold this ravishing mountain, neither the loss of the kingdom nor the absence of My friends distresses Me. O Fortunate One, behold that mountain abounding with flocks of birds of every kind, where the metals lie, crowned with peaks that seem to kiss the skies. See how amongst the summits some have the radiance of silver, others of gold; some are the colour of madder [a reddish dye], some yellow, and some sparkle like precious stones or resemble flowers or crystals or *ketaka* trees; they shimmer like quicksilver; those regions contain many metals; that Indra among mountains is full of herds of tame deer, tigers, panthers, and bears and is enlivened by flocks of birds. The serried ranks of mango, *jambu, asana,* … and many other trees, covered with flowers and laden with fruit, affording magnificent shade, make this mountain an enchanting retreat.… See how, from the crevices, the waters fall in cascades from every side, causing the mountain to resemble an elephant with the ichor flowing from its forehead. Who would not be filled with delight by these glades from which the fragrance of many flowers issues, pleasing to the senses? O Peerless One, if I am to live with thee and Lakṣmaṇa for many autumns here, no grief will visit Me. This mountain, laden with flowers and fruit, the enchanting resort of flocks of birds, with its ravishing peaks, captivates Me, O Lovely One.” From *The Ramayana of Valmiki,* translated by Hari Prasad Shastri, Shantisadan, London, 1962, vol. 1, p. 297. ## The Six Treatises Of Śrīla Jīva GosvāmīAn Overview ### By Satya Nārāyaṇa Dāsa and Kuṇḍalī Dāsa *Part 2: Tattva Sandarbha* SANDARBHA MEANS “essence” or “heart.” *Ṣaḍ* means “six.” The *Ṣaḍ* Sandarbhas are six treatises that give the essence of six topics about the Absolute Truth. In the course of these six works, the author strongly establishes three points: (1) The *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* is the highest source of knowledge. (2) Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana is *svayam bhagavān,* the original Personality of Godhead. (3) *Prema,* love of Kṛṣṇa, is the supreme goal of life, beyond the happiness of impersonal realization and beyond all other forms of devotion. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī upholds the first point in *Śrī Tattva Sandarbha,* the second in the *Kṛṣṇa Sandarbha,* and the third in the *Prīti Sandarbha.* The treatises of Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī begin with the *Tattva Sandarbha,* or *The Essence of Truth.* Of the six this is the smallest, but that does not lessen its importance. For here Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī lays the foundation for the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness by setting forth its epistemology. He concludes that the *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* is the highest scriptural authority for all human beings. *Śrī Tattva Sandarbha* has two sections. In the first Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī tackles the question of *pramāṇa,* or the valid means of acquiring knowledge—not just any knowledge but transcendental knowledge, knowledge beyond the range of our senses and intellect. In the second section he defines the *prameya,* or object of knowledge. He begins his task of writing the *Ṣaḍ Sandarbhas* by quoting as an invocation a verse from *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* (11.5.32): > kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ > sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam > yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair > yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ “In the Age of Kali, intelligent persons perform congregational chanting to worship the incarnation of Godhead who constantly sings the names of Kṛṣṇa. Although His complexion is not blackish, He is Kṛṣṇa Himself. He is accompanied by His associates, servants, weapons, and confidential companions.” Through this verse, Jīva Gosvāmī indirectly tells us that Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is his worshipable Deity and that he, Jīva, accepts the authority of *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* as the ultimate. Next Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī explains why he is writing the **Sandarbhas*.* He says that Sanātana Gosvāmī and Rūpa Gosvāmī, his spiritual master, have directed him to write this book and so he is doing it as a service. He also expresses gratitude to Śrīla Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī, whose notes and earlier attempt at writing the *Sandarbhas* form the basis of the present work. Then Śrīla Jīva tells who he is writing for: “I write for those people whose only desire is to render service at the lotus feet of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Please do not show my book to anyone else. I curse the person who studies this book but does not desire to serve Kṛṣṇa.” Alternatively, the last sentence may be read, “You [the reader] must vow not to show this book to anyone who does not desire to serve Lord Kṛṣṇa.” *Pramāṇas: The Valid Means Of Knowledge* To begin the book proper, Jīva Gosvāmī quotes a verse that sets forth the three basic divisions of spiritual life: knowledge of our relationship with the Supreme (*sambandha*); the process for realizing that knowledge (*abhideya*); and the ultimate goal of life (*prayojana*). He then asks, “Where do we get evidence about this?” In reply he lists the ten kinds of *pramāṇa,* or means of acquiring knowledge, customarily used in India’s philosophical traditions. He reduces the ten to three, because these three contain the other seven. This was shown by the great scholar and devotee Śrīla Madhvācārya. The three *pramāṇas* Jīva accepts are sense perception (*pratyakṣa*), inference (*anumāna*), and verbal testimony (*śabda*). Of these he promptly discards sense perception and inference as unreliable. All human beings, he says, are subject to four defects: We all make mistakes, we all have imperfect senses, we are all subject to illusion, and we all have a cheating propensity. Our sense perception, therefore, is hardly a reliable means for gaining knowledge, and for knowledge of what exists beyond our senses it is entirely useless. Inference he disposes of as equally unreliable, because inferential reasoning rests on sense perception, which he has already shown wanting. In short, the same defects that directly plague sense perception indirectly plague inference. In the end, Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī accepts *śabda pramāṇa,* or verbal testimony, as the most reliable means of gaining knowledge because it is the only method that can deliver knowledge free of all human frailty. Verbal testimony is of two types. One kind we are familiar with, for we routinely depend on the testimony of experts such as doctors and authorities such as teachers. But none of these sources is flawless. None is exempt from the four human defects listed above. Therefore the second type of verbal testimony, called *apauruṣeya śabda,* is the one he has in mind. *Apauruṣeya śabda* means verbal testimony that has no human origin; it is revealed knowledge coming to us as a gift of the Divine. Such superhuman knowledge has no taint of the four defects of human beings. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī suggests that since we have no other means for gaining knowledge of the transcendental sphere, *śabda pramāṇa* is worthy of closer inspection. Where is such flawless knowledge to be found? Śrīla Jīva affirms that the *Vedas* are the answer. Originally the *Vedas* were not written by any man or group of men. They emanated from the Supreme Lord, who revealed them to Lord Brahmā, the first created being, who then passed them down. Since they are a product neither of human sense perception nor of human reasoning, the *Vedas* are not subject to the four human defects. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī says that since the original message of the *Vedas* has not been changed, the *Vedas* are the best candidate for a source of perfect knowledge. One may contest Jīva Gosvāmī’s stand on *śabda pramāṇa.* For example, one might try to put aside the divine origin of the *Vedas* as nice myth. No doubt a thinker of Jīva Gosvāmī’s stature could have foreseen many objections to his stand and could have written a thick volume to refute them; but he didn’t. Instead of dwelling long on such discussion, he simply asserts that for his means of knowledge he will strictly limit himself to *apauruṣeya śabda pramāṇa,* or the evidence of transcendental sound. Then he gets on with his main purpose. He is right. Without allowing for the validity of transcendental sound, the best we can do is infer, “There is transcendence. Something is there.” Beyond that we can only speculate, and we would not be able to validate our speculations. Any such approach would surely lead to endless futile debate, as in fact it has in the Western philosophical tradition. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī now goes on to explain that the *Vedas* are no longer available in their entirety. Originally there were some 1,130 branches to the Vedic tree of knowledge, but scholars at the time of Jīva’s writing found only twenty branches still extant. Jīva Gosvāmī argues that from such a small representation we cannot be sure we understand the message of the *Vedas*. The subject matter is difficult; the language, Sanskrit, is difficult; the line of teachers who might have helped us has broken; and even the twenty branches left entail more volumes than we can sort through in a lifetime. According to tradition, also, study of the *Vedas* is not open to everyone but only to the priestly class. Thus Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī concludes that the highly abstruse message of the *Vedas* can no longer be understood from study of the *Vedas* themselves. As an alternative he proposes to study the *Purāṇas,* which have the same origin and so are also *apauruṣeya śabda* but were meant for those who cannot understand or approach the *Vedas.* So now he analyzes the **Purāṇa*s.* But he finds that each *Purāṇa* asserts that its particular Deity is supreme. The Śiva *Purāṇa* says Lord Śiva is supreme, the Skanda *Purāṇa* says that Skanda is supreme, the Devī *Purāṇa* says Devī is supreme, and so on for eighteen **Purāṇa*s.* So what is the conclusion? To ascertain this, Jīva Gosvāmī analyzes further. He finds that the eighteen *Purāṇas* have three divisions: six are in the mode of ignorance, six in passion, and six in goodness. He says that we should focus our attention on the six in the mode of goodness because, as Kṛṣṇa states in the *Bhagavad-gītā,* ignorance leads to sleep, passion to greed, and goodness to knowledge. But from the six *Purāṇas* in goodness, still there is confusion as to whether Lord Rāma or Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva or Lord Viṣṇu or Lord Kṛṣṇa is supreme. Here Jīva Gosvāmī takes a different tack. He says, “If we can find a book which explains *Vedānta*, which explains the Gāyatrī *mantra,* which is *apauruṣeya,* which is completely available, and for which a disciplic line exists, then we should analyze that book.” He finds that the book which best fits these criteria is the *Bhāgavata* *Purāṇa,* or Śrīmad-*Bhāgavata*m, and so he will analyze the Śrīmad-*Bhāgavata*m. The *Ṣaḍ Sandarbhas* are nothing but an in-depth analysis of the *Bhāgavata*m. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī now establishes that the *Śrīmad-*Bhāgavatam** is the natural commentary on the *Vedānta-sūtra.* The *Bhāgavatam* is completely available in eighteen thousand verses, it begins with the Gāyatrī *mantra,* and there is a disciplic line for it as well. And great scholars in the past, such as Ādi-śaṅkara, Madhvācārya, and Rāmānujācārya, held the *Bhāgavatam* in high regard. From all this he concludes that of the six *Purāṇas* in the mode of goodness *Śrīmad-*Bhāgavatam** is the ultimate *śabda pramāṇa* and therefore worthy of detailed analysis. Jīva Gosvāmī says, therefore, that although he will quote other sources, he will quote *Bhāgavatam* as the highest authority, not to reinforce his words but to establish the meanings from the *Bhāgavatam* that he wishes to explain. He mentions that he will quote Śrīdhara Svāmī’s commentary, *Bhāvārtha Dīpikā.* Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu accepted Śrīdhara Svāmī’s commentary. Jīva Gosvāmī, therefore, in accord with Lord Caitanya’s wishes, will quote from Śrīdhara Svāmī’s words whenever possible. Jīva notes, however, that in some places Śrīdhara Svāmī did not speak clearly enough. So in those places, Jīva says, he will make his own comment. Again, some of Śrīdhara Svāmī’s comments are not strictly in line with the *bhakti* principles, because Śrīdhara Svāmī was using the logic called *baḍi-śāmiṣa nyāya,* which means that if you want to catch fish you have to feed them meat. Your goal is not to feed the fish but to catch them. Similarly, Śrīdhara Svāmī didn’t want the impersonalists to reject him out of hand, so he wrote a mixed commentary, though he made clear from the outset that he accepts the personal feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Jīva Gosvāmī has been criticized in contemporary academic circles for using Śrīdhara Svāmī for his own purpose and not really respecting his authority. But Jīva makes no secret of his motives. He makes clear that in his system of authority Śrīdhara Svāmī plays only a supporting role. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī ends the first section of the *Tattva Sandarbha* by pointing out that Madhvācārya wrote a commentary on the *Bhāgavatam* and that although Śrī Rāmānuja did not, the *Bhāgavatam* is an often quoted reference in his works. There can be no question, therefore, that these great philosopher saints accepted the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa* as authoritative. *Prameya: The Knowable* Jīva Gosvāmī next declares that he will analyze the heart of Śukadeva Gosvāmī, the speaker of the *Bhāgavatam,* through a verse by Sūta Gosvāmī. In that prayer, Sūta says, “I bow to Śukadeva Gosvāmī, the destroyer of all sins, the son of Vyāsa. His mind was filled with the bliss of impersonal realization, and he was devoid of all worldly thoughts, yet His heart was drawn to the enchanting pastimes of Ajita [Kṛṣṇa]. Śukadeva Gosvāmī has compassionately revealed this *Purāṇa,* which revolves around the Supreme Personality of Godhead. My salutations unto Śukadeva Gosvāmī.” Sūta mentions that Śukadeva was absorbed in impersonal realization. This means that Śukadeva had no material desires. **Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam*,* therefore, must not be mundane, because Śukadeva had already gone beyond interest in anything mundane. Furthermore, the knowledge in *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* must surpass the happiness of impersonal realization. What Śukadeva spoke to Parīkṣit Mahārāja could not have been impersonalism, because Śukadeva had already rejected that along with materialism. Having analyzed the heart of the speaker, Jīva Gosvāmī now wants to analyze the heart of the writer, Vyāsadeva. Śrīla Jīva wants to elicit our agreement that the writer and the speaker are of one mind. His study of Vyāsa proceeds from the *Bhāgavatam* verses in the second chapter that state, “By *bhakti-yoga* he saw the Pūrṇa Puruṣa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, along with His potencies and all His associates. Vyāsa also saw the living entities bewildered by Māyā.…” Vyāsadeva concludes that simply by listening to the *Bhāgavatam* one is freed from the clutches of illusion and attains devotion to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. After writing the *Bhāgavatam,* Vyāsa taught it to Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Why Śukadeva, who wore not even a loincloth? Why not one of many other disciples? He taught Śukadeva, Jīva says, because Śukadeva was completely *nivṛtta* (detached from material life) and had no scope at all for misusing this highest knowledge. The section of the *Bhāgavatam* Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī is quoting here shows the heart of Vyāsadeva and the heart of the Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy. This passage directly mentions *bhakti* and Kṛṣṇa and the energies of the Lord. No one, therefore, can accuse Jīva of juggling words or merely putting forward the partisan views of his school. Rather, he goes deep into the original message of the author himself and mines it for all its worth. Śrīla Jīva originally called his work the *Bhāgavata Sandarbha,* or the essence of the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa,* for he reveals the heart of the *Bhāgavatam*. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī next analyzes the heart of Sūta Gosvāmī, again with a similar format: he takes verses spoken by Sūta in the second and third chapters and analyzes them to arrive at the same conclusion of *bhakti.* Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī says we can go on analyzing this way for all the principal speakers—Maitreya Muni, Nārada Muni, and others. If we do so, he says, we will see beyond a doubt that the whole purpose of *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* is to explain three things: *sambandha, abhideya,* and *prayojana.* The first four *Sandarbhas,* therefore, deal with **sambandha*,* the fifth deals with *abhideya,* and the sixth with *prayojana.* The *sambandha* portion takes four books because on this one aspect there is rampant confusion and there are many conflicting philosophies. Śrīla Jīva considers this topic, therefore, in minute detail. *Satya Nārāyaṇa Dāsa was born in a family of devotees in a village between Vṛndāvana and Delhi. He holds a postgraduate degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. While working in the U.S. as a computer software consultant, he joined ISKCON in 1981. He later received spiritual initiation from ISKCON leader Bhakti-svarūpa Dāmodara Swami. He now teaches Sanskrit at the Bhaktivedanta Swami International Gurukula in Vṛndāvana and is translating the* Ṣaḍ Sandarbhas. *Kuṇḍalī Dāsa joined ISKCON in 1973 in New York City. He has taught Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the United States, India, the Middle East, and eastern and western Europe. He has written many articles for* Back to Godhead *and is now editing Satya Nārāyaṇa Dāsa’s translation of the* Ṣaḍ Sandarbhas. ## Cover StoryTulasī Devī, Beloved of Kṛṣṇa *One of Kṛṣṇa's most intimate servants comes in a special form to bless us with extraordinary fortune.* ### By Govinda Dāsī *Devotees of Kṛṣṇa worship a little tree. But she’s not an ordinary tree. She’s Tulasī Devī, Kṛṣṇa's favorite plant.* *Tulasī has delicate purple and green leaves, flower tassels like miniature temple spires, and an arresting, sweet fragrance famous for attracting the minds of* yogīs *to Kṛṣṇa's service.* *Tulasī’s wood is carved into the* japa *beads on which devotees chant Kṛṣṇa's name. Devotees wear strands of Tulasī beads around their necks. Her leaves and flowers decorate the Deity of Kṛṣṇa in the temple and are placed on food offered to Him. She has taken the form of a tree so that everyone, even the poorest person, can offer something wonderful to Kṛṣṇa.* MY FASCINATION with Tulasī Devī began very soon after meeting Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1967*.* I searched Indian stores all over New York City to find a set of Tulasī *japa* beads*.* One clever man sold me rosewood beads, assuring me they were Tulasī*.* When I presented them to Śrīla Prabhupāda, he held them and looked at them with scrutiny, then simply said, “No, not Tulasī*.*” But he chanted on them anyway*.* Later, in 1968, as I was cleaning Śrīla Prabhupāda's room I found his Tulasī *japa* beads lying near his bead bag on his cushion. As I carefully put them back into their bag, I was mesmerized by their smooth touch and golden glow. They were large, round beads, shiny from years of use, with a mystical quality that still sticks in my mind. In 1969, Śrīla Prabhupāda sent me to Honolulu to open a temple. I spent much time at the research library of the University of Hawaii’s East-West Center. I found many ancient texts from India, some by Śrīla Prabhupāda's *guru* and other Vaiṣṇava saints. And I found information on Tulasī Devī—her botanical names, her history, and ways to grow her. My desire to grow Tulasī became an obsession, and somehow I got seeds from India. The first set of seeds did not grow. I daily worshiped a thin green sprout until it became painfully evident that it was a blade of grass. The second batch of seeds proved fruitful, however, and tiny heart-shaped seedlings spread their delicate leaves in our Honolulu home. That was the beginning. I still didn’t know why growing Tulasī was important to Śrīla Prabhupāda or his mission. But when I later presented two small Tulasī plants to him in Los Angeles, he was delighted. He held one of the small pots in his hand for a long time, gazing at the seven-inch seedling, noting that she was indeed Śrīmatī Tulasī Devī. Prabhupāda talked on and on about the glories of Tulasī Devī, and he was in such joyful spirits! Śrīla Prabhupāda's servant, Kārtikeya Dāsa, was astonished. He later told me that he had not seen Śrīla Prabhupāda so light-hearted and happy in over a year. At one point, Śrīla Prabhupāda told us that Tulasī Devī was a great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and that her husband, a demon, was killed by Kṛṣṇa. Then Prabhupāda stopped short and became thoughtful. My intuition was that he had given us as much as we could then understand. So my understanding became quite basic: somehow, growing Tulasī made Śrīla Prabhupāda very, very pleased*.* That was enough*.* I proceeded to cultivate Tulasī plants on a large scale*.* I wrote a booklet entitled “How to Grow Tulasī Devī,” sent seeds and booklets to every temple, and tried to offer advice and assistance to devotees in their efforts to cultivate Tulasī*.* Later, I came across the following purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda in the *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* (4.8.55): It is specifically mentioned herein that *tulasī* leaves are very dear to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and devotees should take particular care to have *tulasī* leaves in every temple and center of worship. In the Western countries, while engaged in propagating the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we were brought great unhappiness because we could not find *tulasī* leaves. We are very much obliged, therefore, to our disciple Śrīmatī Govinda Dāsī because she has taken much care to grow *tulasī* plants from seeds, and she has been successful by the grace of Kṛṣṇa. Now *tulasī* plants are growing in almost every center of our movement. Only then did I become truly aware of the importance of cultivating Tulasī plants. I realized that my initial attraction to Tulasī and my obsessive desire to grow Tulasī plants, though not inspired by a direct instruction from Śrīla Prabhupāda, were communicated from within the heart by the Lord to please and assist Śrīla Prabhupāda in his mission. I felt humbled and joyful that even in my ignorance I had been given an opportunity to serve him in this way. *Learning Respect for Tulasī* In 1968, before Tulasī made her appearance in the West, Śrīla Prabhupāda sometimes talked about her. I recall him saying that in India everyone considers Tulasī plants sacred, and no one will cut or uproot them. Even non-Hindus, he said, will not destroy Tulasī to build a house on a spot where she is growing—they’ll look for a place not inhabited by Tulasī. When Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura discovered the birthplace of Lord Caitanya, it was so overgrown with Tulasī that no one had settled there, thinking it to be a sacred place. Even non-Hindus considered that disturbing Tulasī plants would bring ill fortune. When Prabhupāda came to Hawaii in 1971, he admired our lush Tulasī garden in front of the entrance to the temple. Because these Tulasīs had grown far larger than we had expected (some nearly seven feet tall and with stalks two inches in diameter), we had a problem. The Tulasī branches were beginning to cover the entrance, and people unavoidably brushed up against her. We pointed this out to Śrīla Prabhupāda and asked his permission to trim some of the branches. He became alarmed and exclaimed, “You cannot cut Tulasī—that is the greatest offense! You must never cut her. But you can tie back the branches obstructing the entrance.” Even after tying back the branches, Tulasī kept growing, and the problem continued. When we told Śrīla Prabhupāda that people had to bend down when passing through the Tulasī archway on the way into the temple, he was delighted. He smiled, his eyes sparkled, and he said, “That’s good. It is good that they have to bow to Tulasī before entering Kṛṣṇa's temple.” When Śrīla Prabhupāda came for a later visit, he carefully entered the Tulasī archway by going through sideways to avoid brushing against her leaves and branches. And while walking along the walkway to the temple, which was lined with more Tulasī plants, he told his secretary, Śyāmasundara, “Don’t step on her shadow.” In these ways Śrīla Prabhupāda showed great respect for Tulasī Devī. In his books, too, Śrīla Prabhupāda called attention to the exalted position of Tulasī Devī. He writes in a purport to the *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* (3.16.21): The goddess of fortune, Lakṣmī, is sometimes envious of the *tulasī* leaves which are placed at the lotus feet of the Lord, for they remain fixed there and do not move, whereas Lakṣmījī, although stationed by the chest of the Lord, sometimes has to please other devotees who pray for her favor. Lakṣmījī sometimes has to go to satisfy her numerous devotees, but *tulasī* leaves never forsake their position, and the Lord therefore appreciates the service of *tulasī* more than the service of Lakṣmī. In *The* *Nectar of Devotion,* Śrīla Prabhupāda quotes from the *Skanda Purāṇa:* *Tulasī* is auspicious in all respects. Simply by seeing, simply by touching, simply by remembering, simply by praying to, simply by bowing before, simply by hearing about, or simply by sowing this tree, there is always auspiciousness. Anyone who comes in touch with the *tulasī* tree in the abovementioned ways lives eternally in the Vaikuṇṭha world. Śrīla Prabhupāda taught us never to think of Tulasī as an ordinary plant. She is a great devotee standing before us in the form of a small tree. She appears as a delicate tree in this world to serve the Lord and uplift human society. Tulasī Devī can be used in many ways to please the Supreme Lord, but never for gratifying one’s senses. To offer Tulasī Devī with a material incentive—to destroy one’s enemies, to remove anxieties, to make medicine—will be the bridge by which one enters the hellish regions. Tulasī Devī has come to the West to give us the opportunity to serve her for our benefit. If we care for her nicely, she can grant us love for Kṛṣṇa. *Serving Tulasī’s Home* In November 1989, I met “Vṛndā Kuṇḍa Bābā,” or Mādhava Dāsa, a renowned scholar and Vaiṣṇava saint, and a great devotee of Śrīmatī Tulasī Devī. He had spent years in Vṛndāvana working to restore and develop Vṛndā Kuṇḍa, the eternal home of Vṛndā Devī, the cowherd-girl form of Tulasī Devī. Mādhava Bābā’s knowledge of the scriptures, especially those relating to the glories of Tulasī Devī, was vast. Not surprisingly, I felt an immediate connection. Because Bābā had become old and ill, he wanted to leave his work to reliable people who were also devoted to Tulasī Devī. Somehow, by the divine arrangement of the Lord, he ended up at ISKCON’s Krishna-Balarām temple. On meeting him, I felt a strong urge to assist him and began by helping with his medical expenses. Later, when he became bedridden in February and March of 1990, I worked with Vidyā Devī Dāsī, Muralīdhara Dāsa, and Mohana Dāsa to help provide nursing and medical care for him in his final days. At that time, I was inspired to paint a picture of Vṛndā Devī. Mādhava Bābā knew all the scriptural references to Vṛndā Devī, and he carefully supervised the tiniest details of this painting. The scriptures describe Vṛndā Devī as having a beautiful complexion like molten gold, a shimmering golden effulgence, and an enchanting pearl on her nose. A gentle smile decorates her lips. She wears blue garments and is decorated with pearls and flowers. Her right hand is raised in blessing the devotees, and on her left hand she holds her yellow parrot, Dakṣa, who has thousands of parrot disciples of various colors: red, green, yellow, blue, white. The parrots serve Vṛndā Devī by carrying messages to various parts of Vṛndāvana. Vṛndā Devī is in charge of the Vṛndāvana *līlā*—the pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. She decides which flowers will bloom, which birds will sing, which songs will be sung, which breezes will blow, which food will be served, which games will be played, which musical instruments will be played. Lord Kṛṣṇa and Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī have given Vṛndā Devī her role as queen of Vṛndāvana. Vṛndā Devī may be likened to a grand director or choreographer of the Vṛndāvana *līlā,* and her parrots are her communication service. She always stays in Vṛndāvana, absorbed in love for Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Her great yearning is to expertly arrange Their meeting, and by doing this she feels the greatest joy. When the painting was finished, I would hold it up before Bābā daily, and he would chant his prayers to Vṛndā Devī, his worshipable Deity. Often he would cry when he saw her. Once he looked up at me and very humbly said, “Thank you, Mātājī. You have made just the exact replica of Vṛndā Devī.” I told him, “Bābā, because you are now unable to walk and go see your beloved Deity, Vṛndā Devī has arranged to come to see you.” We pressed Bābā to tell us his life story so we could tape it for future publication. He was reluctant. “No Mātājī, I don’t want name and fame.” We persisted, imploring him that it would be a necessary part of continuing the development of Vṛndā Kuṇḍa. We pleaded that name and fame would come after he had left this world. He finally agreed, for the service of Vṛndā Devī, and we began documenting his life story and the story of the development of Vṛndā Kuṇḍa. Śrīla Prabhupāda had told us that Vṛndāvana is named after Vṛndā Devī. It means “forest of Tulasī.” Bābā explained, “This Vṛndāvana-dhāma belongs to Śrī Kṛṣṇa. It is the shining crest jewel of all the Vaikuṇṭhas, and Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu, has made Vṛndā Devī the ruling monarch of Lord Kṛṣṇa's opulent and auspicious abode of Vṛndāvana.” Every day Bābā talked to us of the glories of Vṛndā Devī as described in the *Skanda Purāṇa, Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa, Padma Purāṇa, Garuḍa Purāṇa, Nārada Purāṇa,* and other Vedic texts. He carefully translated the *Vṛndā-devyaṣṭakam* by Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, and he told us about the mercy of Lord Caitanya. We learned that the Lord would have a Tulasī tree carried before Him in His *saṅkīrtana* party. During this time, I visited Vṛndā Kuṇḍa. There is a small, simple temple there, and a lovely pond lined with Tulasī trees. The atmosphere was surcharged with a unique spiritual essence. I sat quietly and chanted and meditated beside Tulasī Devī. In my mind I had a fleeting “glimpse” of a beautiful palace, with winding crystal staircases and shimmering decor. I wondered at this, and when I saw Bābā I asked him about it. He began to describe such a palace from various scriptural quotations. I was stunned. In a miraculous way that only Lord Kṛṣṇa could have designed, this aged saint, who was born in a highly situated *brāhmaṇa* family and who had spent his entire life as a *sādhu,* was now being cared for by a small crew of American and European disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda. Witnessing his love and devotion for Vṛndā Devī was our greatest gift. It was as if Śrīla Prabhupāda had arranged for us to receive further instruction and opportunity to serve Śrīmatī Tulasī Devī by sending Bābā into our midst. *A Divine Soul Departs* Bābā’s passing away was glorious. It was early, just after *maṅgala-ārati,* on March 27, 1990. Vidyā and I were in the temple making Tulasī garlands when Bābā’s nurse rushed in, telling us to come quickly. On the way to his room I grabbed the painting of Vṛndā Devī to take to him. As I entered the room, I was a bit shaken by the hanging presence of impending death. Death is a powerful, compelling force, hard to describe, yet almost tangible. I held the painting for Bābā to see and said, “Vṛndā Devī has come.” He focused on the beautiful form of Vṛndā Devī and tried to say his Sanskrit prayers to her. His last audible words were “Kṛṣṇa! Kṛṣṇa!” We sat beside his bed and chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa on our beads. Dīnabandhu Dāsa arrived and began playing the harmonium and singing. It was a soft and gentle *kīrtana,* penetratingly sweet and melodious. The whole room was filled with a golden glow. Bābā’s eyes were fixed on Vṛndā Devī, and when he could no longer see externally, his eyes were shining in ecstasy and focused on some other world. It was as if he was clearly seeing Kṛṣṇa and his beloved Vṛndā Devī. A beautiful smile was on his lips. His breath came in tiny gasps, and with each breath his ecstasy increased. His face shone with a remarkable radiance. Then he was gone. It was a moment of incredible awe and ecstasy! We were seeing a divine soul depart for the realm of Goloka, and we cried for joy. Bābā’s departure left an indelible imprint on my mind. I saw the energy of death in action—compelling, relentless, moving forward like a bulldozer, pushing the soul out of the body. It was fierce and final, frightening and overwhelmingly real. This was the essence and inner meaning of time. I tasted the divine words of the *Gītā:* “I come as death.” Then I saw the devotee’s response to death: full surrender at the Lord’s lotus feet with pure love and trust. And I witnessed the Lord’s divine protection of His devotee. What may be fearful and horrible for others was for Bābā a joyous reunion with his beloved Lord. Kṛṣṇa came and filled the room with His love and radiance, and Bābā left with Him to eternally serve Vṛndā Devī at her home in Vṛndā Kuṇḍa. Bābā’s work at Vṛndā Kuṇḍa was left unfinished. I believe it was his gift to us, Śrīla Prabhupāda's generations of disciples. Because of Śrīla Prabhupāda's efforts in spreading the glories of Tulasī Devī all over the world, Vṛndā Devī led Bābā Mādhava Dāsa to choose ISKCON to continue her service at Vṛndā Kuṇḍa. The small crew of us who cared for Bābā all feel deeply committed to carrying on his work at Vṛndā Kuṇḍa. By Kṛṣṇa's grace, the daily worship of Vṛndā Devī is still going on. We promised Bābā that a compound wall will be built around Vṛndā Kuṇḍa and other improvements will be made. Through this work, our spiritual strength will be increased and our understanding of *kṛṣṇa-bhakti* will become mature. There is great spiritual merit accrued from caring for holy places. And of all holy places, Vṛndā Kuṇḍa is one of the most auspicious. *Govinda Dāsī became a disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1967 in San Francisco. She now lives in Hawaii.* *Our thanks to Mañjarī Devī Dāsī of Oakland, California, for her help in putting together this article.* *Worshiping Tulasī Devī* The following list was compiled from scriptures and from Śrīla Prabhupāda's instructions. • Tulasī’s body is spiritual. Although Tulasī appears as many individual trees, she is one person, and she comes wherever she sees devotion to Kṛṣṇa. • Every morning devotees should water and pray to Tulasī Devī and circumambulate her three times. • Worship Tulasī with nice food, flowers, incense, a ghee lamp, and other traditional articles of worship. • Protect the delicate Tulasī seedlings from birds and insects. It is an offense to turn the seedlings back into the soil. • In places where Tulasī cannot survive the winters when planted in the ground, provide a suitable house for her. • Every day provide Tulasī fresh air, water (as needed—be careful not to water too much), and sunshine (or plant lights). • Neglecting to care for or water Tulasī properly is a great offense. Do everything carefully. • When picking Tulasī leaves, chant the following *mantra:* > tulasy amṛta-janmāsi > sadā tvaṁ keśava-priyā > keśavārthaṁ cinomi tvāṁ > varadā bhava śobhane “O Tulasī, you were born from nectar. You are always very dear to Lord Keśava. Now, in order to worship Lord Keśava, I am collecting your leaves and *mañjarīs*. Please bestow your benediction on me.” Pick only the leaves that grow next to the *mañjarīs* (flowers) and the leaves that are ready to drop—they will turn a pale color—not the new, green ones. Pick the *mañjarīs* as soon as they blossom. Avoid letting them go to seed, which takes much energy from the plant that can be used to make more leaves and flowers for Kṛṣṇa's service. Pick the leaves one at a time with your fingertips. Don’t shake or stroke the branch and damage healthy leaves. Pick with care and attention. Avoid using cutting tools. • Never cut or prune Tulasī Devī. This is a great offense. Remove dead branches if absolutely necessary. If branches obstruct a passageway, tie them back, but don’t cut them. • Pick Tulasī leaves and flowers in the morning, never at night (from sunset to sunrise). • Never use chemical sprays on Tulasī. • Collect leaves once in the morning for worshiping Kṛṣṇa and for putting on the plates of food to be offered to Him. Put at least one leaf on each preparation. Never pick Tulasī leaves for any other purpose than to offer to the Lord. • Lord Kṛṣṇa likes garlands of Tulasī leaves. Tulasī leaves mixed with sandalwood pulp and placed on the lotus feet of the Lord is the topmost worship. Do not place Tulasī leaves on the feet of anyone other than Lord Viṣṇu in His various forms. Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī can be given a Tulasī leaf in Her hand for offering to Lord Kṛṣṇa. • Kṛṣṇa accepts even dry Tulasī leaves. • Tulasī wood (taken after a plant has fully dried naturally) can be used to carve worship paraphernalia, such as beads. Place leftover Tulasī wood within the earth. • Never use Tulasī leaves or flowers to make teas or juices, even after they’ve been offered to Kṛṣṇa. It is a great offense to cook or heat Tulasī, or to use her for mundane purposes, such as medicines and ointments. • Never cut down or pull up living Tulasī plants. This is a great offense. • Avoid stepping on Tulasī Devī’s shadow. • Tulasī Devī is very, very dear to the Lord. Therefore, most important is to serve her with love and devotion. *Benefits of Worshiping Tulasī Devī* Although we can never fully describe the glories of Tulasī Devī, an eternal associate of Lord Kṛṣṇā, the scriptures give us a hint of the value of worshiping her. The following list comes from the *Padma Purāṇa*. —Tulasī is the essence of all devotional activities. —The leaves, flowers, roots, bark, branches, trunk, and shade of Tulasī Devī are all spiritual. —One who with devotion applies the paste of Tulasī wood to the Deity of Kṛṣṇa will always live close to Kṛṣṇa. —One who puts mud from the base of the Tulasī tree on his body and worships the Deity of Lord Kṛṣṇa gets the results of one hundred days’ worship each day. —One who offers a Tulasī *mañjarī* to Lord Kṛṣṇa gets the benefit of offering all other varieties of flowers, and he goes to the abode of Kṛṣṇa. —One who sees or comes near a house or garden where the Tulasī plant is present gets rid of all his sinful reactions, including that of killing a *brāhmaṇa.* —Lord Kṛṣṇa happily lives in the house, town, or forest where Tulasī Devī is present. —A house where Tulasī Devī is present never falls on bad times, and it becomes purer than all holy places. —The fragrance of Tulasī Devī purifies all who smell it. —Lord Kṛṣṇa and all the demigods live in a house where mud from the base of the Tulasī tree is found. —Without Tulasī leaves, Lord Kṛṣṇā does not like to accept flowers, food, or sandalwood paste. —One who worships Lord Kṛṣṇa daily with Tulasī leaves attains the results of all kinds of austerity, charity, and sacrifice. In fact, he has no other duties to perform, and he has realized the essence of the scriptures. —One who puts into his mouth or on his head Tulasī leaves that have been offered to Lord Kṛṣṇa attains Lord Kṛṣṇa's abode. —In Kali-yuga, one who worships, remembers, plants, keeps, or performs *kīrtana* before Tulasī burns up all sinful reactions and quickly attains Lord Kṛṣṇa's abode. —One who worships Lord Kṛṣṇa with Tulasī leaves releases all his ancestors from the realm of birth and death. —One who remembers the glories of Tulasī or tells others about them will never take birth again. *The Tulasī-Ārati Prayers* Śrīla Prabhupāda gave his disciples the following prayers for worshiping Tulasī Devī. ### Śrī Tulasī Praṇāma (Recite when bowing to Tulasī.) > vṛndāyai tulasī-devyai > priyāyai keśavasya ca > kṛṣṇa-bhakti-prade devi > satyavatyai namo namaḥ “I offer my repeated obeisances unto Vṛndā, Śrīmatī Tulasī Devī, who is very dear to Lord Keśava [Kṛṣṇa]. O goddess, you bestow devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa and possess the highest truth.” ### Śrī Tulasī Kīrtana (Sing during the *ārati.* This song is in Bengali.) > namo namaḥ tulasī! kṛṣṇa-preyasī > rādhā-kṛṣṇa-sevā pābo ei abhilāṣī > je tomāra śaraṇa loy, tāra vāñchā pūrṇa hoy > kṛpā kori’ koro tāre bṛndāvana-bāsī > mor ei abhilāṣ, bilās kuñje dio vās > nayane heribo sadā jugala-rūpa-rāśi > ei nivedana dharo, sakhīr anugata koro > sevā-adhikāra diye koro nija dāsī > dīna kṛṣṇa-dāse koy, ei jena mora hoy > śrī-rādhā-govinda-preme sadā jena bhāsi “O Tulasī, beloved of Kṛṣṇa, I bow before you again and again. My desire is to obtain the service of Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. “Whoever takes shelter of you has his wishes fulfilled. Bestowing your mercy on him, you make him a resident of Vṛndāvana. “My desire is that you will also grant me a residence in the pleasure groves of Śrī Vṛndāvana-dhāma. Thus, within my vision I will always behold the beautiful pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. “I beg you to make me a follower of the cowherd damsels of Vraja. Please give me the privilege of devotional service and make me your own maidservant. “This very fallen and lowly servant of Kṛṣṇa prays, ‘May I always swim in the love of Śrī Śrī Rādhā and Govinda.’ ” ### Śrī Tulasī Pradakṣiṇa Mantra (Sing while circumambulating Tulasī.) > yāni kāni ca pāpāni > brahma-hatyādikāni ca > tāni tāni praṇaśyanti > pradakṣiṇaḥ pade pade “By the circumambulation of Śrīmatī Tulasī Devī all the sins one may have committed are destroyed at every step, even the sin of killing a *brāhmaṇa.*” ### Eight Names of Vṛndā Devī Vṛndā Devī: She has thousands and thousands of *sakhīs* (associate maidservants). Vṛndāvanī: She never leaves Vṛndāvana. Viśvapūjitā: The whole world worships her. Viśvapāvanī: She is the sanctifier of the whole world. Puṣpasāra: She is the essence of all flowers. Nandinī: She gives happiness to everyone. Tulasī Devī: She has an incomparable form. Kṛṣṇa-jīvanī: She is the life and soul of Lord Kṛṣṇa. *Serving Vṛndā Kuṇḍa* In a letter requesting contributions for Vṛndā Kuṇḍa, Mādhava Bābā once wrote, “Vṛndā Devī is known as Śrīmatī Tulasī Devī and is worshiped by all Sanātanists. The worship of Tulasī Devī is the life of *Sanātana Dharma*. Negligence of Tulasī *sevā* means the negligence of entire religion.… Śrī Vṛndā Devī Temple and its twin Kuṇḍas (Vṛndā Kuṇḍa and Gupta Kuṇḍa) are glorified in sixty ancient Sanskrit and Bengali books.” The following are plans for the upkeep and development of Vṛndā Kuṇḍa: • Build a boundary wall around the two-acre site. • Build a *samādhi* (tomb) for Bābā Mādhava Dāsa. • Build a good road to the site. • Level the site. • Build steps around the Kuṇḍa. • Deepen the Kuṇḍa. • Renovate and expand the temple. • Dig for fresh drinking water. • Plant trees. • Buy land for growing vegetables and keeping cows for self-sufficiency. • Build guestrooms for pilgrims. To contribute for this work, please write to: Vrinda Trust 1504 Riverton Road Cinnaminson, NJ 08077 USA or Vrinda Trust Śrī Krishna-Balarām Mandir Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg Raman Reti, Vrindavan, UP India *Śrī Vṛndādevy-aṣṭaka* ### “Eight Prayers Glorifying Śrī Vṛndā Devī,” by Viśvanātha Cakravartī ṬhākuraTranslation by Bābā Mādhava Dāsa > (1) gāṅgeya-cāmpeya-taḍid-vinindi- > rociḥ-pravāha-snapitāyma-vṛnde > bandhūka-bandhu-dyuti-divya-vāso > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. You are bathed in your own splendor, which defeats the effulgence of lightning and the golden *campaka* flower. The luster of your transcendental garments is the friend of the *leandhilia* flower. > (2) bimbādharoditvara-manda-hāsya- > nāsāgra-muktā-dyuti-dīpitāsye > vicitra-ratnābharaṇa-śriyāḍhye > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Your face is illuminated by the splendor of the pearl decorating the tip of your nose, and by the extraordinary gentle smile on the two *bimba* fruits which are your lips. You are enriched by the beauty of the amazing and colorful jewels and ornaments you wear. > (3) samasta-vaikuṇṭha-śiromaṇau śrī- > kṛṣṇasya vṛndāvana-dhanya-dhāmni > dattādhikāre vṛṣabhānu-putryā > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu, has made you the ruling monarch of Lord Kṛṣṇa's opulent and auspicious abode of Vṛndāvana, which is the crest jewel of all the Vaikuṇṭha planets. > (4) tvad-ājñayā pallava-puṣpa-bhṛṅga- > mṛgādibhir mādhava-keli-kuñjaḥ > madhv-ādibhir bhānti vibhūṣyamāṇā > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Because of your order, the groves where Lord Mādhava performs His pastimes appear very splendid, decorated with blossoming flowers, bumblebees, deer, and other auspicious animals, flowers, and birds. > (5) tvadīya-dūtyena nikuñja-yūnor > atyutkayoḥ keli-vilāsa-siddhiḥ > tvat-saubhagaṁ kena nirucyatāṁ tad > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Who can describe your good fortune? You were the messenger who brought about the perfection of the amorous pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, the youthful couple, who enthusiastically sport in the groves of Vṛndāvana. > (6) rāsābhilāṣo vasatiś ca vṛndā- > vane tvad-īśāṅghri-saroja-sevā > labhyā ca puṁsāṁ kṛpayā tavaiva > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. The living entities who attain the service of the lotus feet of your Lord reside in Vṛndāvana. And the desire to understand the Lord’s amazing pastimes of the *rāsa* dance is only by your mercy. > (7) tvaṁ kīrtyase sātvata-tantra-vidbhir > līlābhidhānā kila kṛṣṇa-śaktiḥ > tavaiva mūrtis tulasī nṛ-loke > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Those who have studied the *Sātvata-tantra* glorify you. You are Lord Kṛṣṇa's potency for performing pastimes, and you are known as Tulasī Devī in the human society. > (8) bhaktyā vihīnā aparādha-lakṣaiḥ > kṣiptāś ca kāmādi-taraṅga-madhye > kṛpāmayi tvām śaraṇaṁ prapannā > vṛnde namas te caraṇāravindam O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Those who are devoid of devotion to Lord Hari, and who are thrown by their offenses into the waves of lust and other inauspicious qualities, may take shelter of you. > (9) vṛndāṣṭakaṁ yaḥ śṛṇuyāt paṭhed vā > vṛndāvanādhīśa-padābja-bhṛṅgaḥ > sa prāpya vṛndāvana-nitya-vāsaṁ > tat-prema-sevāṁ labhate kṛtārthaḥ O Vṛndā Devī, I offer my respectful obeisances to your lotus feet. Let a person who becomes like a bumblebee at the lotus feet of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, and who reads or hears these eight verses describing the glories of Vṛndā Devī, eternally reside at Goloka Vṛndāvana. He attains devotional service in pure love of Godhead, and all his spiritual aspirations become fulfilled. ## Coming To Kṛṣṇa *Saved by Kṛṣṇa* *“I tried to imagine how my wife and children would feel when they found my dead body.”* ### By Jamnadas Vanmali ALONG THE JOURNEY of life we all have milestones, major events that direct us and mold us to become the individuals we are. Sometimes these fateful events are joyous and pleasant; often they are tragic or miserable. One of mine was frightening. In 1987, I, my wife, Chanchar, and our two children (Dharmesh, 15, and Kavita, 5) were living in our home in Groblersdal, South Africa, a quiet village about two hundred kilometers north of Johannesburg. Our new home was a lonely farmhouse about ten kilometers from town. One weekend, Chanchar and the children were away visiting my parents in Durban, and I was home alone. It was a typical quiet evening on the farm, with not much to listen to other than crickets chirping in the fields. Living far away from anyone—the nearest neighbor more than a kilometer away—we never locked our doors or took precautions of that sort. Relaxing on my recliner, I heard footsteps moving quickly around the outside of the house. Before I had time to react, three men burst through the front door. One pointed a revolver at me. My mind spun: “How to get out? Where is the telephone? Can I get my hands on a knife or any weapon? These black men are going to kill me. I know it. The racial hatred between blacks and wealthy Indians is the cause of this. My time is up.” Two men ransacked our belongings while the third held the gun to my face. For more than fifteen minutes, which seemed like eons to me, they packed cash, jewelry, and other valuables into their car. A fourth man had driven up to the house after they’d entered. I remained helpless, looking down the barrel of the gun. Although I was not born or raised in India, my ancestors were. My grandfather had immigrated to South Africa from Gujarat. Our family continued to worship Lord Kṛṣṇa throughout my childhood. As I sat with death staring down at me, ideas started to flash across my mind. I had read in the newspapers that sometimes robbers shoot people and roll them up in a carpet to die. There have been many such murders in recent times. To eliminate possible witnesses, robbers sometimes murdered old people after robbing their houses. “They’re going to do the same to me,” I considered in horror. I thought of many things I wanted to do. I tried to imagine how my wife and children would feel when they found my dead body. Then I remembered, “Now I’m going to die. I must remember Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The time has come for me to face my life’s ultimate test. I must remember Kṛṣṇa.” I could vividly visualize His beautiful form, standing next to His eternal consort, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. His smiling face and beautiful lotuslike eyes relieved me of all my anxiety and fear. I stopped worrying about the robbery, the people threatening my life, and the barrel of the gun pointing at my head. I felt that if I could die now, that would be the perfection of my life. Quick footsteps and the sound of a car starting brought me back to my external senses. The intruders had made a dash for their car and were driving off. Another car had miraculously driven into my yard, and the robbers had run away. My friend Reg had unexpectedly arrived. Although apparently the headlights of his car had been my savior, in the depth of my heart I knew Kṛṣṇa had saved me. A few months later we moved from that lonely farmhouse to Durban, but racial tension in South Africa continued to haunt my family and nation. In 1989 we decided to move from South Africa. I developed some business contacts in Australia, arranged proper visas, and made airplane reservations. Around that time I received an invitation from the ISKCON temple in Durban to attend a fund-raising banquet for “phase two” of the center’s development. My wife and I attended and heard the address given by ISKCON leader Bhakti Cāru Swami. “Five hundred years ago, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu predicted that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would spread throughout the world, in every town and village. That prediction has been fulfilled by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. He spread this movement all over the world, establishing temples of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa in all the major cities.” “It’s really true,” I reflected. “Wherever I’ve been I’ve seen ISKCON temples.” Bhakti Cāru Swami continued: “Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu requested all Indians to help spread this movement by preaching the glory of Kṛṣṇa. To engage them in His mission, He placed Indians in different parts of the world. It is time that they become engaged in that service of Supreme Lord.” I wondered, “What have I done to help spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, to help spread Indian culture?” “All problems of the world today are due to man’s forgetfulness of Kṛṣṇa,” he said. “The more people reject God, the more difficult becomes the situation of the world. Remembrance of Kṛṣṇa as the supreme proprietor, the supreme enjoyer, and our dearmost friend is the ultimate solution to all problems. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, which is reminding people all over the world about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and showing how to establish our lost relationship with Him, is the only way to solve the world’s problems.” His words entered my heart. I thought, “Yes, Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the supreme controller, and if we surrender unto Him then all our problems will be solved.” For the first time in my life I realized that all problems are due to man’s forgetfulness of God, and if we want to solve these problems we must remind everyone who God is. “Why am I running away from South Africa like a coward?” I thought. I resolved to stay there and help the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement spread. That evening I donated 100,000 rands (US$40,000), and from then on I became more involved in ISKCON. As time went by, Chanchar and I developed faith by associating with devotees. My life has changed. I have a mission, a worthwhile goal to my existence. My wife and I chant sixteen rounds daily. Chanchar performs services several times a week at the Durban temple. In 1990 I was fortunate enough to realize a sizeable profit from my business. While driving Bhakti Cāru Swami to the Rathayātrā festival in July, I promised to donate another one million rands to ISKCON. I realize, perhaps more than others because of my experience, that all material assets are temporary. Believe me, that fearful night when I faced death is etched in my memory. It sometimes haunts me. I know that at any moment all I have worked for can be ripped from my hands. My possessions are not really my own—they have been bestowed upon me by God. It is my duty to use them in His service. All glories to the *saṅkīrtana* movement of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu! *Jamnadas Vanmali is now an initiated disciple of Bhakti Cāru Swami, who has named him Śrīnāthajī Dāsa.* ## Project Profile HERE’S A Kṛṣṇa conscious project you might like to support or get involved in. ### PROJECT *ISKCON World Review.* ### HEADQUARTERS San Diego, California (moving to Alachua, Florida, this year). ### PROJECT LEADERS Mukunda Goswami (Executive Editor), Sarva-satya Dāsa (Administrative Director), Kuntī Devī Dāsī (Editor). ### GOALS To publish news of the worldwide activities of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, to foster communication and cooperation among its members, and to promote their projects, activities, products, and services. ### HISTORY ISKCON Communications, headed by Mukunda Goswami, published the first issue of *ISKCON World Review* in May 1981, under the management of Uddhava Dāsa. IWR readers have witnessed the rise of Hare Kṛṣṇa temples, schools, Food for Life programs, and many other projects in nearly every region of the world. They have seen kings, presidents, and other prominent people meet with ISKCON officials. IWR documented the struggles of the Soviet Hare Kṛṣṇas incarcerated for their beliefs. It marshaled aid for their freedom and then reported ISKCON’s becoming the first registered religion in the Soviet Union. IWR gathered support for saving New Māyāpur, the French temple the government tried to close; Bhaktivedanta Manor, the English temple under legal attack by a few neighbors; and several North American temples threatened by the Robin George lawsuit. ### DETAILS Today *ISKCON World Review* receives reports from fifty-two international correspondents and goes to subscribers in sixty countries, as well as to scholars, religionists, government leaders, the media, and leaders of animal rights, vegetarian, and environmental movements. Temples send their members *ISKCON World Review*, which Navīṇa Kṛṣṇa Dāsa of the ISKCON Foundation calls “an excellent way to build pride in ISKCON and strengthen confidence in our future.” The paper’s editorials have been on the cutting edge of ISKCON’s social progress, championing innovations like ISKCON credit unions, community development, and apprenticeships for second-generation devotees. The paper has become a major venue in ISKCON for devotional commerce. The IWR Marketplace presents opportunities for devotional service, employment, education, health care, and the distribution of transcendental books, tapes, and other products. Recently, IWR sponsored the premier issue of *The Hare Kṛṣṇa Directory and Resource Guide,* the first compilation of ISKCON’s temples, projects, Governing Body Commissioners, spiritual masters, other devotees, and a variety of other resources. ### PLANS Because of a lack of money and staff, IWR now comes out bimonthly, but IWR leaders aim to make it a monthly. The way to accomplish this, they feel, is to help temples develop their communities. The staff plans to index all previous issues of IWR and offer them on computer disk. They also hope to preserve the photos and the papers through archival methods. ### OBSTACLES Devotees around the world are not fully aware that they can use IWR to promote their projects and enterprises. The paper is not merely a North American publication. It is one of the few vehicles that connects ISKCON members worldwide. Temples building congregations need to understand the importance of using IWR. They can send it to prospective members and submit stories and photographs about their center. IWR may be able to help centers unable to do their own membership mailings. ### HOW YOU CAN HELP Use *ISKCON World Review*—by subscribing, advertising, ordering bulk quantities, patronizing its advertisers, and getting involved with the projects it advocates. For $20 or more you can sponsor a section of the newspaper, such as Cow Corner, Books are the Basis, Śrīla Prabhupāda Centennial, World News Briefs, or ISKCON in India. Or you can send a tax-deductible donation. For more information, please contact: ISKCON World Review, P.O. Box 99103, San Diego, CA 92169. Phone (619) 270-6110; fax (619) 270-4183. Please see the ad on page 56. ## Śrīla Prabhupāda Speaks Out *LSD And Liberation* *The following conversation between Śrīla Prabhupāda and the poet Allen Ginsberg took place in Columbus, Ohio, on May 11, 1969.* Śrīla Prabhupāda: Nobody is free from service because we are constitutionally servants. Either we become the servant of the Great or **māyā*.* Just like in any condition of our lives, we have to abide by the state laws. If you don’t abide, then you come to the prison house. You will be forced. Similarly, *māyā* and Kṛṣṇa. If we don’t abide by Kṛṣṇa, then we come to **māyā*.* We cannot be free. That is not our position. Freedom results in frustration. Allen Ginsberg: Do you remember a man named Richard Alpert? He used to work with Timothy Leary in Harvard many years ago. And then he went to India and found a teacher and is now a disciple of Hanumānjī, or a devotee of Hanumān. We were talking about *māyā* and the present condition of America. So he said that his teacher in India told him that LSD was a Christ of the Kali-yuga for Westerners. Śrīla Prabhupāda: Christ? Allen Ginsberg: Of the Kali-yuga for Westerners. As the Kali-yuga got more intense, as attachment got thicker and thicker, salvation would also have to get easier and easier. Śrīla Prabhupāda: That is a very nice statement that in the Kali-yuga salvation becomes much easier. That is the version of *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam* also, but that process is this *kīrtana* [chanting the names of God], not LSD. Allen Ginsberg: Well, the reasoning was that for those who would only accept salvation in a purely material form, in a chemical form finally, Kṛṣṇa had the humor to emerge as a pill. Śrīla Prabhupāda: No, the thing is that with any material form, where is there salvation? It is illusion. Allen Ginsberg: Well, the subjective effect is to cut attachment during… Śrīla Prabhupāda: No. If you have got attachment for something material, then where is the cut-off of attachment? LSD is a material chemical. Allen Ginsberg: Yeah. Śrīla Prabhupāda: So if you have to take shelter of LSD, then you are taking help from matter. So how are you free from matter? Allen Ginsberg: Well, the subjective experience is, while in the state of intoxication of LSD you also realize that LSD is a material pill, and that it does not really matter. Śrīla Prabhupāda: So that is risky. That is risky. Allen Ginsberg: Yeah. Now, so if LSD is a material attachment, which it is, I think, then is not sound, *śabda,* also a material attachment? Śrīla Prabhupāda: No, *śabda* is spiritual. Just like in the Bible it is said, “Let there be creation.” This sound is spiritual sound. Creation was not there. The sound produced the creation. Therefore, sound is originally spiritual, and from sound, sky develops; from sky, air develops; from air, fire develops; from fire, water develops; from water, land develops. Allen Ginsberg: Sound is the first element of creation? Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Allen Ginsberg: What was the first sound traditionally? Śrīla Prabhupāda: The Vedic literature states, *oṁ*. So at least we can understand from your Bible that God said, “Let there be creation.” So there is this sound, and then there is creation. God and His sound are nondifferent, absolute. I say, “Mr. Ginsberg,” and this sound and I are different. But God is nondifferent from His energy. *Śakti *śaktimat*or abhedaḥ. Śakti*, energy, and *śaktimat*, the energetic. They are nondifferent. Just like fire and heat, they are nondifferent, but heat is not fire. You cannot differentiate heat from fire, or fire from heat. But fire is not heat. Allen Ginsberg: Well, the sound Kṛṣṇa… Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes, it is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa. Allen Ginsberg: Under all circumstances. Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes, under all circumstances. But it is a question of my appreciation, or my realization. That will depend on my purity. Otherwise, this Kṛṣṇa sound and Kṛṣṇa are nondifferent. Therefore if we vibrate the sound Kṛṣṇa, then we are immediately in contact with Kṛṣṇa. And because Kṛṣṇa is wholly spiritual, then we become spiritualized. Just like if you touch electricity, immediately you’re electrified. And the more you become electrified [by vibrating the sound Kṛṣṇa], the more you become Kṛṣṇa-ized. So when you are fully Kṛṣṇa-ized, you are on the Kṛṣṇa platform. *Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so ’rjuna*. You don’t come back to this material existence. You remain with Kṛṣṇa. ## Every Town & Village The worldwide activities of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) *World News* ### North America Devotees from seven countries gathered in Topanga, California, in August for ISKCON’s first conference on rural community development. Among the topics discussed: a conceptual economic model based on the *Bhagavad-gītā,* strategies for an ox-power, grain-based economy, and the need for long-range planning in farming (permaculture). Copies of the conference proceedings and audiotapes of the presentations are available from Vaishnava Community Development, P.O. Box 90143, San Diego, CA 92169. High-placed public officials from nineteen countries visited the Bhaktivedanta Cultural Center in Detroit in August. The group, which included supreme court justices and attorney generals, dined on a full-course *prasādam* dinner and received a guided tour of the temple complex. They were sponsored by the U.S. State Department to take part in its International Visitors Council program, which invites up-and-coming international leaders to the United States and teaches them about the U.S. judicial system. ISKCON governing body commissioner Ravīndra Svarūpa Dāsa addressed the dignitaries, impressing upon them the universal nature of the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the authentic heritage of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. Each guest received a copy of Śrīla Prabhupāda's biography. The Girls Vaishnava Academy has moved into a new 2,500-square-foot house on five acres of land near ISKCON’s New Ramaṇa Reti Farm. The school has eighteen girls (ages twelve to eighteen), from the United States, Japan, Scotland, South America, and Germany. Last summer the girls won the appreciation of the local people by helping plant 32,000 flowers along a county highway. Three thousand watched as Rāvaṇa burned at the Festival of India held last September in Spanish Fork, Utah. The effigy-burning was the climax of a *Rāmāyaṇa* play put on by local devotees. The San Francisco branch of the Bhaktivedanta Institute has moved across the bay to Oakland. Their new address: P. O. Box 29737, Oakland, CA 94604. Phone: (510) 465-7618; fax: (510) 465-5471. Vice Mayor Mike Haggerty cut the ribbon to officially open Govinda’s at ISKCON’s Caitanya Cultural Center in Tucson, Arizona. Under the direction of Daśaratha Dāsa, devotees have transformed an acre of desert land into a paradise with palm trees, gardens, walkways, waterfalls, fountains, and an aviary with parrots and peacocks. Mr. Haggerty said that he is glad that Tucson finally has a vegetarian restaurant and that it is located in such a beautiful place. A hundred thousand people saw Lord Jagannātha’s chariot roll down Yonge Street during Toronto’s twenty-second annual Rathayātrā festival. The parade included three lavishly decorated chariots, five floats depicting Lord Kṛṣṇa's pastimes, and many classical Indian dance performances. At the festival site, on Toronto Centre Island, devotees passed out twenty thousand plates of *kṛṣṇa-prasādam.* Participants in the International Geographical Congress heard about Lord Caitanya at their gathering in Washington, D. C., last fall. Mrs. Hasi Das, a Calcutta college professor and wife of ISKCON advisor A.C. Das, presented a paper entitled “Māyāpur: The Sacred Place of International Fame.” She told of ISKCON’s plan to develop Māyāpur as a spiritual city with a magnificent temple. ### Europe Leaders at the Bhaktivedanta Manor have submitted a 200-page document to the European Court in Strasbourg, France, in a final effort to preserve public access to the popular ISKCON center near London. It will take about a year to hear back from the court. For more than six years the devotees have been appealing the decisions of local and county councils to deny public worship at the temple. BBC Radio listeners could hear Śrīla Prabhupāda's *Bhagavad-gītā As It Is* every day during October. The readings included a verse from the *Gītā,* a short purport, and a story from the *Bhāgavatam* to illustrate the purport. Estimated audience: 500,000 a day. Eight devotees are traveling around Germany in the Spiritual Skyliner, a forty-foot bus they’ve converted into a temple. Last year they put on seventy programs in various towns and cities. Two Hare Kṛṣṇa families are unleashing a revolution in Romania. Paramguru Dāsa, Timisoara temple president, and his wife, Tadadhinā Devī Dāsī, operate a successful business that sells Prabhupāda's books to stores all over the country. They sold a thousand books their first month. “The people here are poor,” says Tadadhinā, who holds a university degree in economics. “But when they see an attractive book at a store, they’ll save their money and purchase it later on. As our business contacts expand and we get more titles in Romanian, we expect the books to become a nationwide rage.” On another front, Murāri Kṛṣṇa Dāsa (Dr. Marius Crisan), a lecturer at the University of Timisoara, teaches a weekly seminar on *bhakti-yoga.* Assisted by his wife, Śyāmalā Devī Dāsī, he has translated a wide range of materials from the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the scientific branch of ISKCON. Murāri Kṛṣṇa says he believes the growing interest in the Vedic science of cosmic origin is a sign he will soon be teaching seminars in universities all over the country. Visitors keep coming back to Rāḍhadeśa, the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement’s castle in Durbuy, Belgium. The former Chateau de Petite Somme is nestled in the rolling hills of the Ardennes region, where the Battle of the Bulge was fought in World War II. Last year more than 25,000 guests toured the rooms of the chateau, including the temple, where they viewed the presiding Deities, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Gopīnātha. Orphans, the aged, and the sick receive *prasādam* from devotees in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, as part of the Hare Krishna Food for Life program. The government, private farms, and other organizations give free food supplies to the devotees. Since last April, more than five thousand people have received kṛṣṇa-*prasādam*. ### India A quarter of a million people attended festivities during the five-day Janmāṣṭamī celebrations at ISKCON’s temple in Juhu, Bombay. The ISKCON auditorium, one of the best in the city, was packed each day with people eager to see performances for Kṛṣṇa's pleasure by world-renowned musicians and dancers, including Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Anuradha Paudwal, Shekhar Sen, Anup Jalota, Ashit Desai, and Hema Malini. Chief guests included actor Anil Kapoor, state minister Ramarao Adik, and Bombay mayor Chandrakant Handore. At midnight on Janmāṣṭamī, devotees bathed Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Rāsavihārī with 108 pots of honey, milk, and Ganges water. The president of India, Shanker Dayal Sharma, visited ISKCON’s temple in New Delhi on Janmāṣṭamī, the appearance day of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Three tons of *prasādam* were passed out during the Hyderabad Rathayātrā parade. Dr. P. V. Ranga Rao, state education minister for Andhra Pradesh and son of India’s prime minister, swept the road in front of Lord Jagannātha’s chariot to inaugurate the seven-kilometer parade. India’s largest publisher of religious books has published **Passage From India*,* by Steven Rosen (Satyarāja Dāsa). The book is a summary study of Satsvarūpa Dāsa Goswami’s *Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta,* a seven-volume biography of Śrīla Prabhupāda. *Passage From India* will be part of a series of biographies studied at high schools and universities in India and Europe. Construction has resumed on ISKCON’s temple in Baroda, Gujarat, after a five-year delay due to lack of funds. The temple will be topped by three yellow domes of the traditional Somapura style of Gujarati temple architecture. The spacious basement of the temple has served as living quarters, offices, and a temporary temple. Temple president Vāsu Ghoṣa Dāsa says the number of visitors to the temple has tripled since construction resumed. Dr. Vibhakar J. Mody of Washington, D.C., and originally from Baroda, has pledged $50,000 to the project, in memory of his mother, who passed away in Baroda in June 1991. Devotees are planning the development of ISKCON’s 31-acre plot in Jagannātha Purī, Orissa. They plan to use the five-acre beachfront for a guesthouse and a naturopathic health clinic. Two acres will be leased to devotees for housing. The rest of the land will be used for agriculture, a temple, a day school, a cowshed, a memorial to Śrīla Prabhupāda, a *prasādam* hall, a museum, and *āśramas* for men and women. Although non-Indians are not admitted into Purī’s famous Jagannātha temple, local acceptance of ISKCON devotees, including Westerners, is improving. The king of Purī, Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasinga Dev, invited ISKCON members to attend the road-sweeping ceremony before the start of last summer’s Rathayātrā festival. For the first time, many Western devotees were welcome to chant and dance before the original Jagannātha Deities. ### Mauritius Five thousand people attended the Janmāṣṭamī celebrations at the Phoenix temple, ISKCON’s main center in this island nation. American-born Vāsu Ghoṣa Dāsa, temple president of ISKCON Baroda, Gujarat, delivered the main address in Hindi. ### Middle East Bahrain’s labor and social affairs ministry has granted registration to “The Hare Krishna Group,” making Bahrain the first Persian Gulf state to officially allow the practice of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The group is made up of Indian professional and business people, most of whom were already enrolled as ISKCON life members, and is headed by Dr. Sitaram, senior emergency physician at Salmaniya Hospital and chairman of Indian School. The group meets in the evening to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and study Śrīla Prabhupāda's books. Other activities include festivals, programs for children, in-depth study courses on the *Bhagavad-gītā* and the *Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,* and competitions on scripture. ISKCON governing body member Jayapatākā Swami presided over the opening of the group’s center. ### Commonwealth of Independent States Professor C. G. Kotovsky visited the ISKCON center in Moscow recently. He spoke to Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami and others about his meeting with Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1971. The professor had a *prasādam* lunch, saw the Deities of Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāi, and received a copy of *Bhagavad-gītā As It Is* in Russian. *For more detailed news, ISKCON puts out a monthly news-paper,* ISKCON World Review. *To subscribe, see page 56. Any news from your town or village? Please let us know!* *Vṛndāvana News* Marble Supply Interrupted The supply of marble for Śrīla Prabhupāda's *samādhi* was held up from June through September by an exceptionally wet rainy season that flooded mines in Rajasthan. Now the work has picked up again. Front Gate Reopens By March, if all goes well, visitors will enter ISKCON’s Krishna-Balarām Temple through a new marble front gate. The front entrance has been closed for years by the work to build Śrīla Prabhupāda's *samādhi.* The reopening signals that the work is nearing an end. Trees Destroyed In September vandals cut down thirty trees at the garden ISKCON is growing with the World Wide Fund for Nature. The trees—bamboo, champak, banyan, and poinsettia—had been growing for a year. ISKCON’s site manager, Acyuta Dāsa, at once replaced the cut trees with new ones. “They’re not as big,” he says, “but everything is growing.” Apart from the garden, ISKCON and the WWF have planted trees along half the pilgrimage path that encircles Vṛndāvana. The state government has planted shrubs and trees along the other half. Planting is easy, says Acyuta. The hard part is to maintain what is planted. Acyuta proposed a test to the government officer in charge: “Let’s see who’ll maintain their half better.” The officer responded, “As long as I’m here, I’m taking up your challenge.” ### Governor Visits Among recent visitors to the Krishna-Balarām Temple: Śrī Satya Narayan Reddy, the governor of the state of Uttar Pradesh, where the temple is located. ### Institute Well Attended In September and October, 160 devotees attended month-long Kṛṣṇa conscious seminars in Vṛndāvana at ISKCON’s Vaiṣṇava Institute for Higher Education. The next seminars there start the second week in January. ### Feeding the Residents of Vṛndāvana ISKCON has been asked to provide daily meals for some 150 *bābājīs* (ascetics) at Rādhā-kuṇḍa, a holy place in the Vṛndāvana area. ISKCON has tentatively agreed. ISKCON also feeds one hundred Vṛndāvana widows every day at the Krishna-Balarām Temple. The next program: distribution of *prasādam* in surrounding villages. *Padayātrā News* ### Padayātrā India Devotees completed their Himalayan pilgrimage in September, having reached Gangotri, Yamunotri, and Badrinath. In October they joined other ISKCON members in a month-long walking tour of Vṛndāvana. Now they’re headed to Jagannātha Purī, on the east coast. On the way they’ll pass through Naimiśāraṇya, where Sūta Gosvāmī spoke the *Bhāgavatam;* Ayodhyā, the birthplace of Lord Rāma; Allahabad, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamunā, and Sarasvatī rivers; and Gayā, where Lord Caitanya received initiation. ### Padayātrā America The *padayātrīs* entered Costa Rica in October and should be in Panama, the last country in their Central America tour, in early January. They’ve walked through El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. ### Padayātrā Europe The international group of devotees walking through Europe started in southern Spain in May. After three months in Spain, they walked through France along the Mediterranean coast and reached Genes, Italy, in September. After a few months in Italy, the party will begin the walk to Greece, the next leg of the journey, which will end in Moscow. ### Padayātrā Siberia Hundreds of devotees chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and carrying a palanquin bearing a picture of Śrīla Prabhupāda have been visiting many towns and cities throughout Siberia. ### Padayātrā England Paraśurāma Dāsa led a small party made up of his wife and children and a few other devotees along the roads of England for several months last year. They put on thirty-two festivals with puppet shows, plays, chanting, and *prasādam* distribution and attracted much media coverage. ### Padayātrā New Zealand Devotees began a 43-day walk through the North Island on December 26. In 1991 the New Zealand Padayātrā toured the country’s South Island. ### Padayātrā Switzerland Last summer, fifteen devotees with an ox and a cart toured the villages surrounding their farm in the Alps. During the three-day walk, they passed out two hundred hardbound books. ### Padayātrā Trinidad Devotees here have held several one-day walks. Many schoolchildren and members of the temple’s congregation joined in. For more information about Padayātrā, write to: Padayātrā Worldwide 62, Sant Nagar (near Nehru Place), New Delhi 110 065 India. Phone: +91 (11) 642-1736. Fax: +91 (11) 647-0742 Padayātrā America 1111 Grand Ave., San Diego, CA 92109. Phone: (619) 273-7262. Padayātrā Europe Bhaktivedanta Manor, Letchmore Heath, Watford, Herts. WD2 8EP, England. Phone: +44 (92) 385-7244 ## The Vedic Observer *Of Gold and Nectar* *Olympic gold medals can’t compare with the rewards of a swift moonlit walk around Vṛndāvana’s most sacred hill.* ### By Sureśvara Dāsa OUTSIDE HIS NATIVE SPAIN Daniel Plaza Montero’s Olympic gold medal in the twenty-kilometer walk last summer drew little notice. As one commentator remarked, “Race-walking is like a contest to see who can whisper the loudest.” But I was enthralled. Montero’s heels and toes and swinging elbows took me back to the fastest walk of my life. Twenty-two kilometers around India’s Govardhana Hill. It was the autumn of 1987, on the full-moon anniversary of Lord Kṛṣṇa's dance with the *gopīs,* the cowherd damsels of Vṛndāvana. At dusk a local swami led me and two other Americans on Govardhana *parikrama,* a walking tour around the hill Kṛṣṇa lifted with the pinky of His left hand. Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, the swami took off like a bullet. *Parikrama* is a pilgrimage, not a race, but I liked the pace. Somehow the speed revealed the urgency of the chanting. “O Lord, O energy of the Lord, please engage us in Your eternal loving service.” Single-file, we scooted barefoot over the *parikrama* path. The path was like life—now rough, now smooth—and even the smooth spots sometimes surprised us. We had to pick our feet up high, or the uneven ground would bang our heels and toes. Serious pilgrims never let Nike or Reebok come between their feet and the holy land. Nor do they spit, gab, run, or look back. To our left, the full moon was rising through the trees, showing Govardhana, low and lovely, to our auspicious right. We passed villagers placing fresh pots of sweet rice in full view of the moon. Its beams “dripped nectar” into the pots, they said, in honor of Kṛṣṇa's divine dancing with the *gopīs.* Lickety-split went Kṛṣṇa's names, over our tongues, through our ears, and into our hearts. As the trail snaked through a dimly-lit town, the rough terrain ripped the bandages off my blisters. Then … squish! I stepped into a pile of pure cow dung. And another and another. The trail was full of the magic manure, providing antiseptic “shoes” for my tender Western feet. Govardhana was helping me keep pace. Outside the town, we hit a sandy stretch lined with tall trees, where dogs were howling at the moon. We passed teens who called “*Angres!*” (“English!”) and laughed. All types of people walked the trail—farmers, businessmen, professionals, gypsies. One robed man with matted locks stepped quickly, touching giant cymbals to a slow three-beat and calling holy names in a high pitch: “Rādhe-Śyāma!” Another was literally prostrating himself around Govardhana. Stretching forth his arms in the dust, he placed a rock as a marker to begin his next prostration. That sort of *parikrama* would take months to complete. Slow and steady (and purely devoted) wins the race. The swami was flying as we approached the village of Rādhā-kuṇḍa, nearly full circle on the *parikrama* path. Suddenly, a group of ruffians rushed out of the shadows. Our torrid pace amused and excited them. They laughed and danced among us, flashing fiery punk sticks near our eyes and shouting, “Rādhe! Rādhe!” after Kṛṣṇa's favorite *gopī.* Our feet rushed over the stones as we entered the village, a small stampede of rough and gentle pilgrims. Even the ruffians in this sacred land are Kṛṣṇa conscious, I thought. But I focused on the heels ahead of me, afraid of falling behind. We raised our arms and pressed our palms as we passed the *kuṇḍa,* Rādhā’s sacred bathing pond. Descending the sandy steps, we bowed and sprinkled a few drops of her holy waters on our heads. The ruffians were gone. Our starting point was only a few hundred yards away. At last, we bowed in the moonlit dust of Govardhana Hill. I looked at my watch: 3 ½ hours flat. By the path, an old man stirred steaming milk in a large wok. Cow bells jingled in the night as we sat at his stand and spoke of Govardhana. No one gave us any medals for walking so swiftly around the hill. Everyone was too busy loving the One who lifted it. (Now there’s one for the Olympians!) Montero got his gold, but we got the nectar. An immortal evening of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Afterthought: The next Olympics is 1996, the same year as Śrīla Prabhupāda's centennial. Imagine a Hare Kṛṣṇa Olympics, glorifying the superhuman feats of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His pure devotee Śrīla Prabhupāda. The perfection of cheers! *Sureśvara Dāsa chants and walks the country roads around Gītā Nāgarī, ISKCON’s farm in Pennsylvania.*