House of God

I so happened to purchase a moped for the coldest recorded winter of America (It snowed - in Florida). I tend to visit the temple almost every day, but for the past several months my visits have tapered off. The cold air from riding a moped has seeped into my bones.

But tonight, I decided I needed the temple. I needed Radhe Shyam.

When I stepped into the templeroom, Prabhupad's voice washed over me. I felt my anxieties dissolve into the cool marble floor. It's that feeling I get when I gaze up at the stars - that beautiful humility. It's like I suddenly have a perspective on how tiny and insignificant I am. This is a place where nothing revolves around me and everything revolves around God.

I pray to be a servant in the house of God. Then I can bathe in the humility of gazing at the stars of Radha Shyamasundar.

Radha Madan Mohan, Gaura Purnima

My dear friend and roommate, Shalagram Shila, used to dress Radha Damodar in Gita Nagari. So on Gaura Purnima morning, I invited her to come dress Radha Madan Mohan with me. 

She dressed Radha.

I dressed Madan Mohan.

The Installation

"So, the confirmed date for the installation of Sri Krishna Balaram is... May 30th!" Mukhya dasi, the temple president of Alachua, announces.

Silence.

"This will be the most amazing installation ceremony North America has ever seen!"

I want to jump from the floor and do a jig. At last. After seven years of dreaming and planning, and the more recent fundraising with sweat and blood, the temple of New Raman Reti dham has set a date to welcome Sri Krishna Balarama. Like our namesake of Raman Reti in Sri Vrindavan dham, the deities of Gaura Nitai, Radha Shyamasundar, and Krishna Balarama will finally all reside here.

And the news is greeted with scattered applause??!?

And I realize, with a laugh to myself, that this community has set over a dozen dates to install Krishna Balarama. We've been in doubt for the past seven years, so I empathize with the silence of disbelief. But something in Mukhya's tone tells me that this is it. This is it.

You see, the hitch has been that the only way Sri Krishna Balarama could be installed was if a new kitchen was built. A very big, very expensive new kitchen. There was simply no way the current kitchen and pujari facilities could facilitate the growth of this community if we welcomed new deities. To cook festival feasts for two or three thousand in the current kitchen is pretty excruciating as it is.

Then Mukhya dasi took the reins of the management here about a year ago and the tide began to turn, the dream to become solid. She pushed for the fundraising drive, and I believe we were all still suspended in disbelief that it was actually happening.

But this community has raised nearly a third of a million dollars.

And so at last, over a month later after Mukhya's announcement, the kitchen is nearly finished and the reality is sinking in, Sri Krishna Balaram are coming, and the anticipation and excitement is spreading like a deep, intense fire all over the world. People from every corner of the world will be flying, driving, and walking in to welcome Sri Krishna Balarama.

So at last, May 30th. Where will you be?

Let It Be

Several nights ago I took a japa walk along the temple road. My mind was on my spiritual master, Radhanath Swami, and I wished that I could be wherever he was.

I turned a bend in the road where the trees parted, and the universe unfolded above me to glitter in breathtaking silence. I halted in my footsteps, stunned. Suddenly, a wave of helplessness washed over me:

I miss my spiritual master, I miss Radhanath Swami, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Nothing. He's across the world... as far as the moon... and I'm here. 

So I stood there under the stars, just stood there. Then I knelt to the ground and buried my head in my hands.

And I realized that that was a glimpse of how I will feel when my spiritual master leaves this world.

A Glorious Encounter

(image by TrekEarth)

In Mexico, there is a mystical place called Agua Azul where a series of waterfalls cascade down a mountain. Once a year, the Bus Tour visits for one glorious day.

So after many adventures, towards evening I made my way to the main waterfalls to chant japa. Tourists crowded behind the railing, snapping pictures.

I grinned and ducked under the railing. I nimbly walked along a narrow strip of rock until it ended in a little spot just big enough for one person to sit. I had dubbed this The Radhanath Swami Rock, so named because once Radhanath Swami had sat upon a rock in the middle of the Ganges River in meditation for one whole month. When he had committed to a final act of surrender, the Ganges had given him the holy name, the maha mantra.

I settled on the little promontory. The majesty of the waterfalls enfolded my vision, and the roar drowned out the sounds of tourists. I unwound my beads from their bead bag and held them between my hands so that anyone who saw me would know I was meditating, and not just mumbling to myself.

I chanted and fell into a trance. I wondered if I listened closely enough the roar of the waterfalls would reveal the holy name to me. I've tried this a lot around large bodies of water ever since I heard Radhanath Swami's story, but mostly I just get an earful of water.

Suddenly, I heard someone call my name. I turned around to see a friend from the Bus Tour behind the railing, holding a plate of prasadam for me. I rose, walked to the railing, gratefully took the plate, and then my friend left. I ate the pasta as fast as possible - I wanted to return to chanting. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an elderly couple observing me in silence.

"Excuse me," the woman suddenly asked in Spanish, "But were you chanting 'Ha-dee Kish-na Ha-dee Kish-na...'" she recited the entire maha mantra.

Dumbstruck, I replied in Spanish, "Yes,"

"And you go around the beads 16 times?"

"Yes! How do you know this?"

"There are Hare Krishnas in Veracruz, where we are from," she said. "Wonderful people."

"Tell me," the husband asked. "What do you believe?"

I lowered my plate. "Well... Ah... This is the science of how to love God, and how to love one another. It is the same in all religions, is it not? This," I gestured to my beads, "is how I connect with God, by calling out His name with love. God may have many different names, but ultimately, God is God."

"Beautiful." the woman said.

"God is so miraculous, isn't He? He created all this," the man gestured to the panorama in front of us. The sun was setting behind the turquoise waterfalls, the jungles were lit in emerald, and the sun danced through the mist in golden clouds.

"God is amazing," I said.

"God is amazing," they agreed.

We bowed farewell to each other, enlightened. I threw away my plate and once more tiptoed out onto The Radhanath Swami Rock. Just as I had settled down, an undulating black ribbon began to stream from behind the waterfalls and fill the sky.

Bats! Hundreds and thousands emerged from the waterfalls in the twilight to loop through the sky in dizzy circles, and then flew off into the jungles for their evening hunt.

Had the elderly couple witnessed this glory of creation, too? I twisted around to look for the couple, but they had vanished.

I closed my eyes and began to chant. Suddenly I realized that the waterfalls had revealed to me the holy name - the elderly woman, in her broken way, had recited the entire maha mantra.

Even out here, in this far-flung country of Mexico, the mercy of Srila Prabhupad had found an elderly couple; and in the jungles of Agua Azul, that mercy had found me.

Sometimes I see so little difference between the glory of God and the glory of His devotee.

Radha Madan Mohan, January 24th

Yesterday morning I dressed Radha Madan Mohan, the installed deities of the gurukulis Ragunath and Yamuna here in Alachua. While I dressed, I turned on a random lecture by Radhanath Swami; the end deeply moved me, so I transcribed it here for all of you.

***

One of the most beautiful things I appreciate about flowers and garlands is how within a day, they wilt and become soggy and lose their fragrance… lose their color, lose their texture, and nobody wants them.

Isn’t that wonderful? It’s so metaphorical to our life. Everything in this world, like the flower, begins as a seed; every living being begins like a seed, starts to grow as a sprout, then blossoms, then wilts, and dies.

But Krishna accepts the essence. This body doesn’t last much longer than a flower garland, from the perspective of eternity. The amount of time that a flower garland wilts and is no longer nice in our vision is really a long time compared to our life from the perspective of Lord Brahma. Our whole life span – all the aging and wilting and everything – is not even a second from his perspective.

So a devotee is saragrahi, always concerned with the essence, seeking the essence of life, seeking the essence of everything we see. And what is the essence? The essence is everything’s connection to Krishna. The essence is eternal. The essence cannot be wilted by time. And every time you place a flower on a garland, that act of devotion is eternal.

Whatever you offer to Krishna – that investment of devotion – will never wilt, will never grow old, will never be lost, is ever fresh, and forever.

That is the beauty of bhakti.

- Radhanath Swami

 January 13th, 2009

The Mystery of Mercy

Not so long ago, I had a dream that I was lying on the side of the road, immobile, hidden from view.

I was dying.

My mind was scattered and fear seeped through my veins. A call for help was lodged in my chest, unable to move because of my numbered breaths.

Then, from down the road I could hear the faint ting of kartals and a distant thrum of mrdanga. The party approached; a dozen people danced by, only yards away. But they didn't see me and I couldn't get their attention. The holy name rung through the air.

I wept and wept; I felt peace filter into my heart. Then the kirtan party moved on down the road, and I breathed my last breath.

I awoke.

The dream haunted me for weeks, for I realized that at the time of my death my mind was not on Krishna. I had been abandoned by everyone and everything, and the dying process had submerged me in fear.

And yet, although I had forgotten Krishna, He had remembered me. The holy name had come for me.  

***

On the first day of the Winter Bus Tour, we pulled into the city of Houston. Our stay was short, so that morning some temple devotees invited several of us on the Tour to sing at a hospice.

When we arrived to the hospice in the cold afternoon, we filled the quiet halls with our laughter. Our arms were loaded down with a mridanga, portable harmonium, and karatalas, and our faces shone with tilak.

Moshumi, our host, addressed us in welcome. “Thank you for coming. This first floor is for those who are to leave this world soon. We have two women especially that we would like you to sing for.” We all quieted and followed Moshumi down the hall. “We were thinking that first you can sing in the hall, and when the time is right we’ll usher you into each room.

“Please keep the music soft,” she continued. “We just had a death on the second floor,”

The gravity of this experience settled on our shoulders. Akinchana began a soft, lilting kirtan and passed the lead on to each of us. Several minutes later, Moshumi ushered us all into the first room.

Singing, we fanned out in a ring around a woman in a hospital bed, her body laced in tubes. When we entered, she sat up in bed, and her eyes lit up. She smiled, as if the sun had entered her room.

Then Akinchana gestured for me to sing; I closed my eyes and sang, and here in this room with a woman whose days were numbered, my own moment of death felt so close, as if I could reach out and touch it.

Suddenly, I remembered my dream, and how I had been so helpless and undeserving at the time of my death. But by the mystery of mercy, Krishna had come for me. The devotees of Krishna had come for me.

It was as if I had become one of those devotees on the road passing by a dying woman. I could sing and I could dance, whereas in my dream I had been paralyzed. This time, I could be an instrument of peace for the holy name.

I sang and tears fell from my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, the woman had raised her arms in the air, her face beaming. Everyone in the room was dancing. I wept.

I write this now over a month later, and I believe that the woman at the hospice has left this world. I don’t even know her name.

But before she left, she knew the holy name. Somehow, on that cold afternoon in Houston, we had all been instruments of the holy name, and that is a mystery of mercy I shall never unravel.