In2-MeC

En route to Belgaum, Maharastra
10 January 2003

From From Imperfection, Purity Will Come About by HH Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami:

Years ago, I used to sing the Introductory Song to Saranagati every morning in the cabin at Gita-nagari. About fifty devotees would gather with me after a morning walk. I remember straining to reach the high notes in the second line of each stanza. Then I would read the translation. The theme of surrender is dear to all devotees. Managers and gurus sometimes used surrender to convince subordinates to perform. "Your duty is hard? Do it anyway! Surrender!" Isang this song to remind us.

The devotees who sang these songs with me are scattered now. They no longer collect money for the farm or teach in the gurukula. The children are no longer obeying their teachers. Some of them no longer surrender to the four rules or chant sixteen rounds. I've stopped singing Saranagati every day and I've stopped demanding that everyone surrender. Now I am working on myself.

It is bracing to read how this very senior disciple of Srila Prabhupada has come to dedicate himself to self-improvement. (I don't know if SDG would agree that 'self-improvement' is what he is working on, since this term may be cheapened by overuse. All them 'self-help' books floating around, some of which enjoy faddish popularity in ISKCON. Nontheless, I confess: I myself feel I've benefited from reading self-help books, though these are not the ones that I find other devotees are reading. )

But a book like this one from Satsvarupa Maharaja stands far above all those on display on the esoteric shelf of your local bookstore. It is by a devotee for devotees. So again, to term it a 'self-improvement' or a 'self-help' book may do it injustice.

From November 24 to December 20 this past year I stayed in a small "monk's cell" on the roof of the Bhaktivedanta Sadhana Ashrama at Govardhana. As my dear Godbrother Keshava Bharati describes it, "This is ISKCON's place of bhajan for ghostyanandis. " I had no assistant with me, nor did I take help from the local brahmacaris for my personal needs. So daily I was washed my own clothes, cleaned my own room, and did my own shopping.

I rose early, chanted my rounds, did my full puja program--the yajna I performed outside my room for Sri Govardhana Hill, which is visible from the ashrama rooftop. For hours each day, I studied. Some days I went on parikrama, an eight-hour barefoot walk around Govardhana Hill that included a stop for a holy bath in the most sacred Sri Radha-Kund. In this way I can list the things I did there, but it's difficult to find the words to describe the sublime consciousness that enveloped me while I was doing them. Govardhana is a place of extraordinary mercy.

Anyway, on the theme of self-improvement, a sannyasi Godbrother who visited the ashrama for a few days said to me, "Every morning from your room I hear you chanting so many mantras and ringing bells. Is it that you don't have so much service to do anymore?" I have to add he asked this in a very loving way; we're old friends.

I answered that I've found that for preaching nowadays, it seems advantageous for a sannyasi to be able to demonstrate a good grounding in Krsna conscious culture and knowledge. As expressed so nicely by Satsvarupa Maharaja, it has become apparent that mere harping on surrender is not satisfying, neither to the assembled devotees nor to the preachers/leaders. So therefore I believe that working to improve one's authenticity as a representative of Krsna conscious knowledge and culture is an important service; perhaps, in these troubled times, the most important service. And besides, I continue to travel and preach.

My Godbrother nodded thoughtfully. He could see what I was talking about.

A good quotation in this regard:

Action without study is fatal.
Study without action is futile.

Now, for 21 points, who was Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama?

This question actually pertains to a Prabhupada remembrance from before my first meeting with His Divine Grace. I believe it took place in early 1971, certainly no later than April. The ISKCON Press had not yet relocated to New York.

So, the first thing about Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama is a letter that arrived from Srila Prabhupada in India. His Divine Grace informed the press devotees that an Indian Swami had joined ISKCON and was offering his service! So Prabhupada had recommended him to come to Boston to work with Pradyumna Prabhu in the Sanskrit department. Now, I didn't read the letter myself; that's what I remember about it from the talk going round the temple.

Some time later, the Swami arrived. He exactly fit the image of an impersonalist sannyasi that we American devotees had in our minds: beard, long hair, turban, ochre robes. In that dress he'd go out with us on Harer-nama Sankirtana. Quite a sight for the karmis. He did chant, and he did look happy. During kirtana he liked to blow on a little conchshell that from time to time he'd pull out of his robes.

He moved into the temple, up on the third floor. He probably shared Pradyumna Prabhu's room (being a temple and not a press devotee, I rarely ascended the third floor, so I'm not sure in which room he stayed. )

The senior devotees were worried about him being a Mayavadi. The Ashrama order of sannyasis comes in the line of Shankaracharya. But Lord Chaitanya took sannyasa in the Mayavadi line too, so maybe Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama was a genuine devotee at heart.

I found out where he was really at one evening after the arati and Bhagavad-gita class. I happened to be downstairs near the front door when in walked three "seventies party animals" (you have to have lived through the 1970's to know what that meant). As per the lingo of that time, these were "two dudes and a chick. " They wanted to see the Indian Swami they said they'd heard about. I quickly determined they did not mean Srila Prabhupada, but Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama. I sent another devotee up to fetch him. Staying to preach to them, I discovered they didn't have much on their minds beyond sex.

Moments later the Swami came down in his full regalia. I stood to the side to listen while he spoke with them. They wanted to take him to a party. "And why?" he asked. "We'll have a good time," they urged. "Come on, Swami--beer, wine, whisky, whatever you want. "

He twinkled at them, shaking his head from side to side in the Indian manner. "No, I'll not come with you. "

"Come on, Swami. Have some fun. Get drunk with us. "

"That's all right, you go to your party. I'll remain here, and I'll drink through your mouths. "

Whoa, I thought, there it is. . . Mayavadi philosophy on toast!

Not many days after that, a second letter about Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama arrived from Srila Prabhupada. To live with us, the Swami had to shave up.

I caught a glimpse of him as he left the men's bathroom after his shave. Without hair and beard he didn't look particularly impressive. Pretty sad character, I thought. Moreover, he was obviously quite upset at being obliged by Prabhupada to part with his head and face follicles.

I never saw Swamiji in the Boston temple after that. I don't know what happened. I guess he didn't like showing himself all shaved up like that, so he stayed in his room upstairs; and at some point he must have left the temple for good.

Some time later we got a handbill with a photo of the Swami on it. Here again he was fully coiffeurred, decked out in turban and robes. The flyer announced his new publication: Bhagavad-gita As It Was!!!

The next thing I heard about him was that he showed up at the Henry Street temple in New York with two women. Srila Prabhupada was visiting at the time. Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama got an audience with His Divine Grace, but it didn't last long. The way I heard it, Srila Prabhupada remarked afterward, "As soon as I saw him, I knew he was crazy. " Later I had a talk with one of the New York brahmacaris who, on Prabhupada's order, forcibly dragged the Swami out of his room and threw him out on the street. The two ladies followed behind meekly with shocked looks on their faces.

So guess what. . . about a year ago I met Swami Swa-ananda Ashrama in the Schipol International Airport in Holland. He looked a bit grayer, had a knit cap on his head instead of a turban, and wore yogi pants instead of a sannyasi lungi. He didn't remember me specifically, but did say, "Hare Krsna! Thirty years ago I stayed in ISKCON. I knew Prabhupada. "

Six kilometers south of Kolhapur (direction Belgaum) we stopped at Gokul Shiragao. This place is described in the Padma Purana as nondifferent from Sri Vrndavana Dham. Lord Krsna came here from Dvaraka and manifested the Yamuna River, a kadamba grove, and Govardhana Hill. And here He performed all His Vraja-lilas.

His lotus footprints and the hoofprints of His cows are preserved in stone.

There is a temple here in which two ancient Deities of Sri Gopala are enshrined. I took darshan and sprinkled water from the Yamuna on my head. An inscription assures us that a single visit to this holy tirtha will destroy all sins. Joy stirs in me here. I am happy I came.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

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