In2-MeC

ISKCON Juhu, Mumbai
14 April 2003

Beloved Vaishnava readers, now here on your computer screen is a real "into me see" text. I am laying in bed as I write these very words. It is 1:35 AM Mumbai time on Monday, April 14. I've just spontaneously woken up with some thoughts and experiences to share with you.

We've been having a little trouble getting texts onto the In2-MeC website. For a week since we parted company at the Howrah train station in Calcutta I didn't hear from Madhu Puri das. I, with Martanda das, boarded the Gitanjali Express for Mumbai. Madhu, half an hour later, boarded a train for Bhubaneshwar in Orissa. I sent Madhu some texts to be edited and published here in In2-MeC but it was a long wait before they finally appeared. I pray that Madhu Puri has not met with some inconvenience that stops him from doing his service of editing.

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Yesterday, Sunday, was Ekadasi. Instead of the usual Bhagavatam class the devotees here normally listen to a reading of Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta by HH Satsvarupa das Gosvami. It so happened that we began the chapter describing Srila Prabhupada's move to the Bowery in New York City after his typewriter and other items were stolen after his arrival in NYC from Butler, Pennsylvania. At the Bowery he took up residence at an A.I.R. loft.

I explained to the devotees that A.I.R. stood for "Artist in Residence." And "loft" meant that the place was a large room, usually covering a whole storey or floor level, in a building that had formerly been a factory of some sort, probably a textile factory. The company running the factory would have moved out to a new address or would have simply gone out of business. So in this way these old factory buildings became vacant; because the area had become degraded, other companies would not move into these buildings. In the 1960s the NYC city government permitted artists to rent spacious lofts in the Bowery and in other run-down areas of the city to do their painting and sculpting.

One of these artists, Harvey Cohen, had become friendly with Srila Prabhupada; he had grown weary of living in NYC and planned to move to San Francisco. This Harvey Cohen would later be initiated as Hari Das and would be the first ISKCON temple president in Frisco. But at this point in time in NYC, Harvey just wanted out of the Bowery, a low-class area mostly populated by alcoholics, drug addicts and petty criminals. So Harvey left his loft for Srila Prabhupada to stay in, who did not want to remain in his previous apartment from which his things were stolen.

Srila Prabhupada shared the loft with David Allen. I wrote about David in an In2-MeC entry in January. Prabhupada planned for David to become his first initiated American disciple. But David didn't receive initiation because he could not give up his heroin habit. One day David went crazy at the Bowery loft; so with the help of Michael (Mukunda) and Carl (Karlapati) Srila Prabhupada moved to the "Matchless Gifts" storefront in the Lower East Side, where the history of ISKCON begins.

I told the Juhu devotees that as a new devotee in Boston I'd met David Allen, who came for a visit in late 1970 or early '71. I wrote about this here in In2-MeC. David was very much respected by the devotees even though he was not practicing Krishna Consciousness sadhana. He was special because Prabhupada personally groomed him for initiation before any other of his American disciples. Though David failed to come up to the standard to receive formal diksa, his heart was deeply impressed by his association with the Lord's pure devotee. Such a fortunate soul, to have shared a residence with Srila Prabhupada! I wonder what he is doing now; I wonder if he is still alive on this planet.

Anyway, at this yesterday's Lilamrta class I told the story of my first meeting with Srila Prabhupada, which you've read here in In2-MeC...my having to stay to clean the kitchen while all the other devotees went to the Boston airport to greet his Divine Grace, and my getting the mercy of offering a fruit plate to Srila Prabhupada after his arrival lecture in the Boston temple. That was sweet, telling the Juhu devotees the inner meaning of this first encounter with my Spiritual Master.

After the class I reflected on an interesting point. Here in Mumbai I've been lecturing on the second of the chatuh-sloki (four nutshell verses of Srimad-Bhagavatam, 2.9.33-36) which express in essence the meaning of the whole Bhagavatam. When Srila Prabhupada came to Boston in 1971, I had four encounters with him, each being the nutshell of an essential aspect of my relationship with my Spiritual Master.

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Sunday afternoon I visited HH Sridhara Swami Maharaja at his "Nrsimha Kutir." On the ISKCON Juhu land, besides the big temple and guest house, there is an apartment complex that has stood here since before ISKCON bought the property. Gradually all the nondevotee residents of those apartments moved out; now the building is occupied by ISKCONians only. So HH Sridhara Maharaja stays in one apartment where he worships his three amazing Nrsimha shilas and one Sudarshana shila.

I wish I could publish here a photo of his big Nrsimha shila, but with Madhu Puri being in Bhubaneshwar there is no digital camera for that. Anyway, the shila is truly amazing. And the story behind Maharaja's getting it is also amazing. He used to worship Nrsimha shilas gifted to him by HH Indradyumna Maharaja. But a few years back these shilas were stolen from a car he had been traveling in while visiting America. So Maharaja felt very bad about this, of course. Then an astrologer told him his shilas would return.

So recently it happened that a devotee came to tell Maharaja that in a shop just near the Juhu temple, a man was selling shaligram shilas along with Rudraksha beads (the kind of beads the Shaivites chant on, just as Vaishnavas chant on tulasi beads). Maharaja went to that shop and was attracted to one particular shila. This form of the Lord is quite large and round, the size of a small melon, and very smooth. And he has a mouth. This mouth is simply amazing. If you look into the opening you can see that the mouth cavity is much larger inside the shila. The inner sides of the cavity are shaped as perfect chakras.

Now, the traditional account of how shilas get their different shapes, particularly the chakra marks, is that in the Gandaki river in Nepal where shaligrams are to be found, there dwell special worms with tusks that carve markings into the shaligram stones. It goes without saying that modern scientists will scoff at such an explanation. They call shaligram shilas "ammonites," meaning a kind of fossil stone formed from the shell of ancient creatures of the nautilus type. When I saw this big shila I understood how deficient this "scientific" explanation is.

This is no fossil. This is a big round stone with a hole in the front that inside expands into a large chamber carved in a chakra shape. Looking at it, logic impels you to conclude that some worm-like animal bored into the stone and did a "tour" around inside of it, then left the stone through the same hole it entered.

The word ammonite comes from the name of a Roman god, "Ammon", who was associated with rams (male sheep). Male sheep have coiled horns growing out of their heads. Scientists say that in ages past undersea creatures like the nautilus, which is a sort of octopus that has a shell shaped like a ram's horn, died and by some process science can't really explain, turned into ammonites, spiral stones that look like the horns of the rams of Ammon.

In places like Whitby, England, there are such stones one can find along the sea beach that could be fossils of the nautilus. Actually you can see these stones yourself by typing "whitby" and "ammonite" into your Internet search engine. You'll come to websites where such stones are pictured. And you'll notice they do not look like shaligram shilas, even though, yes, ammonites and shaligrams sometimes show similar spiral chakra marks. Anyway, HH Sridhara Maharaja's shila makes a farce out of the "ammonite" theory.

The man in the shop selling the shilas had put a price tag on this particular one for Rs 21 000! Maharaja preached to him that a shaligram shila is Vishnu. Anyone who sells a Visnhu shila goes to hell for the entire duration of the universe. The man then offered Maharaja any shila in the shop for free--except the big one! Maharaja kept preaching and insisting he wanted only the big shila with the cakra mouth. And the man ended up giving the shila to Maharaja without cost! Jaya Narasimhadeva! From other sources Maharaja got two ugra-Nrsimha shilas, plus the Sudarshana-chakra shila that was the first shila ever to be worshiped by HH Indradyumna Maharaja, when he took sannyasa.

So the astrologer's prediction was not wrong.

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I had a long and intimate talk with Maharaja yesterday. He is one of my Godbrothers with whom I can reveal my mind in confidence. He jokingly says it is because our initials are the same, "SS." In many ways he and I have the same mind about a lot of things. For example, he resigned from the GBC a few years ago, just as I resigned this year. His "excuse" for resigning is that he has a liver condition that endangers his health.

And that is true. Twice he went into a coma from this condition. But now he is doing better, has lots of energy, travels around the world, preaches, and his major project is to raise funds to build the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in Sridhama Mayapur. It is to this project that he has dedicated the rest of his life.

But his liver sickness is not the deepest reason for his resignation from the GBC. He told me he used to be "a company man." That is an expression that refers to a man who totally identifies with the company he works for, who is unquestioningly loyal to the management. But after 10 years or so on the GBC, after seeing how the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON works from the inside, he began to have questions. He sees that too much institutionalization stifles the spontaneous enthusiasm that Srila Prabhupada liked to see in his disciples. But at the same time Maharaja remains an ISKCON man. He quit the GBC feeling that his participation on that Body was not very fruitful, but he continues to work for ISKCON as Prabhupada taught him. He does not point a finger of blame at anyone.

After all, the GBC is made up of devotees who are also trying to serve Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. Their service in the difficult and controversial area of management of the Society is sure to be problematic. Yes, they do make mistakes. I recall so clearly the meeting at which they made Harikesha Prabhu the GBC chairman for 3 years straight. The Body was completely convinced that this would help solve many of ISKCON's long-standing problems. But Prabhupada had clearly established that a GBC chairman may only hold office for one year. Within half a year, Harikesh Prabhu not only left his post as GBC chairman, but left his position as ISKCON guru, BBT Trustee, and sannyasi. Indeed, he left the Society itself. Since then he has been an advocate of New Age-ism. His dropping out of ISKCON left a good portion of the Society in chaos. At the time the GBC voted him into 3-year chairmanship, I abstained from casting a vote because I sensed a big mistake was being made. And I was right.

But who doesn't make mistakes? Even Srila Prabhupada once said, "You can finds faults in me too" (that is to say, if you are the type of person who looks for faults in others to explain away your own faults.) But that isn't healthy psychology; it is a process of the mind that is called projection, in which one projects deficiencies inside himself upon others. "I can't get along with this devotee because he gets too angry," one may argue; but all that means is that you have anger inside yourself to begin with, and your anger is rubbing against his, causing friction. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati said, "Because my vision is so honeycombed with faults, wherever I look I see only faults." We must all find a way go on trying to serve Guru and Krishna despite the faulty nature of our collective conditioned existence. And we must avoid the offense of criticizing Vaishnavas.

I feel exactly the same way as Sridhara Maharaja does about institutionalization. I too used to be a company man; I used to think that all of ISKCON's problems are "manageable." But as we saw Lord Krishna Himself explain in a verse I quoted in the last Transcendental Psychology essay, so-called external problems are really internal problems.

A disciple once started to ask a question of Srila Prabhupada, that "If devotees are transcendental, then..." Prabhupada cut him off: "Devotees are trying to be transcendental!" The members of the GBC are no exception. They are trying to be transcendental, but as I have personally seen, many of the problems they are trying to solve are problems they created themselves in the first place. So-called external problems are really internal problems. You can't manage away anomalies that are inside of you.

To see this truth, which is explained by Krishna himself to Uddhava, is not to be offensive to the GBC or to any devotee manager. And it is not to say that there should be no management in ISKCON whatsoever, just some smiley walking-on-clouds spiritual anarchy. Management in ISKCON is necessary; Srila Prabhupada made no doubt about that. However, to be loyal and respectful to ISKCON management does not mean to ignore or dismiss as unimportant those areas, those qualities, of Krishna consciousness that management cannot actually manage!

For example, how can your taste for hearing and chanting the holy name of Krishna be managed? Now, it is true that we can manage to get ourselves into the temple in the morning, and manage to get our hands in the beadbag, and manage to perform 16 rounds of japa. But that doesn't guarantee you will chant good rounds with rapt attention. Still, there is a connection between good management of the circumstances of chanting on the one side, and taste for chanting on the other. Srila Prabhupada indicated this nicely in these words:

There is a English proverb that "God helps him who tries to help himself." That is a English proverb. So to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing. People have no taste. They do not understand the importance of this Krishna consciousness movement. But this is the only way by which one can become perfect and happy.

Maybe you did not catch the point Prabhupada is making here. It is that even though people have no taste and thus cannot understand the importance of Krishna consciousness, God will help them if they help themselves. Thus "to become Krishna conscious is not very difficult thing." We "help ourselves" by trying to manage our spiritual activities nicely. We don't have taste, but we should try to get it. We don't understand, but we should try to. This is what sadhana-bhakti is all about. Still, in the final analysis, whatever we do or don't do, the taste "by which one can become perfect and happy" comes to us by the grace of God.

In the practice of sadhana-bhakti, we realize that this grace becomes more apparent in our lives as we try to help ourselves attain it. So because there is a connection between God's help (His mercy) and our helping ourselves (by nicely managing our devotional activities), it may seem that if we are not getting that taste, then it is a problem of management. Well, certainly if we lack taste in Krishna consciousness, something has come up between ourselves and Krishna. But is that "something" really only just external management--our temple president for example, or the GBC? Has anyone ever had the experience that just by blaming the management as being bad their taste for chanting the holy name improves?

In reply to that question, someone may reasonably answer, "No, of course not. That's not the way. Let's not talk about blaming anyone. But we have to take steps to create a pure atmosphere in which we can try our best to make advancement and thereby attract the Lord's mercy." That is a good answer. But...even if we do that, the mercy of the Lord that we attract by our efforts may manifest in a way we don't expect. Maharaja Bharata nicely "managed" to leave his throne and go to the forest to cultivate his taste for Krishna consciousness. But God arranged that he became attached to a deer instead. Not that God forcibly attached his mind to the deer, but He made the arrangement by which Maharaja Bharata's latent material attachments came up in his heart to focus upon the deer. The result was that even though he had attained the exalted state of bhava-bhakti, Maharaja Bharata had to take birth as a deer in his next life.

But while he was in that deer body, the Lord permitted him to remember his previous life's devotional service. And so, as a deer, Maharaja Bharata took to hearing about Krishna with the greatest urgency. Then he was blessed with the full measure of higher taste. Thus after giving up that deer body, he became the spiritually famous Jada Bharata. Obviously, Krishna's plan for delivering His devotee and Maharaja Bharata's own plan for getting himself delivered were a little different!

We are not being offensive to the principle of good management in ISKCON by reflecting upon these truths that are so plainly stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Offenses are created by the way we express ourselves, and by the way we act. If we express anger and frustration and act impetuously (i.e. in the mode of passion), denouncing other devotees for faults that we ourselves carry in our own hearts, then we commit offenses.

We should persevere. This word means "to persist in or to remain constant to a purpose, an idea, or a task in the face of obstacles or discouragement." I personally find institutionalization discouraging. So discouraging I was forced, by a condition of depression, to resign from the GBC. But I remain constant in my purpose as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and as a servant of his Society. It is a question of finding the position and service for yourself in which you can best persist.

There is another state of mind called obstinacy. It can look a lot like perseverance. But obstinacy is defined as: "the state or quality of being stubborn or refractory." Refractory means "to be resistant to authority." Therefore it is said: "The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."

Another English saying is, "Where there is a will, there is a way." Conversely, where there is a won't, there isn't a way. If we look at the ISKCON institution only in terms of "I won't," then there is a good chance we won't find our way back to Godhead. "I won't surrender to these power-hungry ISKCON managers! I won't tolerate their hypocrisy! I won't listen to their classes, which are just the same old dry preaching over and over! I won't obey their instructions, I won't cooperate with them, I won't associate with them!" This insistent "won't" is just a weed in the heart choking the life of the devotional creeper.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on to the surface.

Anyway, I so much appreciate Sridhara Maharaja's mood. He has realized that management can't solve our most fundamental problems in Krishna consciousness. Only Krishna can do that. And Krishna does that in His own way, according to His own plan, because He is independent and supreme and all-powerful, and charmingly clever, too. But Maharaja does not take Krishna's supremacy over all as an excuse to be obstinant towards management. Rather, Maharaja perseveres. He has a strong will, not a strong won't. And thus he continues to go forward. Seeing his example, many devotees are inspired in their own spiritual lives. I am one of them.

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Sridhara Maharaja has started a computer media preaching mission he calls VAST (the Vedic Academy for Spiritual Technology). I told him a story from a darshan Srila Prabhupada had with the BBT Library Party in Chicago 1975. I was a member of that party, so at one point in the discussion I asked Srila Prabhupada about Vedic technology. This question was impelled by my meetings with professors at universities. When I showed them the BBT books, they wanted to know if they explained anything about ancient Vedic technology like brahmastra weapons and vimanas (airplanes).

All Srila Prabhupada told me in reply was, "Vedic technology means Sri Guru Parampara." It was a very short answer. But it was enough. I consider it an extremely important sutra, because technology is the means by which a society progresses. Modern society progresses by material, scientific technology; Vedic society, which ISKCON represents, can only progress by following guru-parampara. If ISKCON does that, it can overtake the world, just as nowadays the Western scientific-technological culture has overtaken the world.

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