Voyage to India

Several days ago, my father sent me a rough draft CD that he recently recorded of his bansuri flute ragas. When I heard the first note, memories of growing up with my father's flute-playing washed over my mind in soft waves.

I realize that Vrindavan draws me more powerfully than any other holy place in the world because of my father's flute. Often he would play a full moon raga on the porch as I fell asleep, or he would bring his flute to play in a bamboo forest, or I would hear the echoes of his bansuri in an empty templeroom.

Each and every time I heard my father play, my thoughts would wander to my mind's vision of Vrindavan... to a little blue boy playing his flute along the banks of a sacred river.

In 2008, I visited India - and Vrindavan - for the first time in my life. I don't know when I'll return, but I hope that when I do, I'll return with my father and listen to him play along the banks of the Yamuna.

Below is a slideshow of my photography while in India, accompanied by the music and poetry of my father. [e-mail subscribers need to click through to seedofdevotion.blogspot.com, or visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z5OImiB9uM]

Dance on the Edge of Life

(© all photos by Adideva das)

My story begins several months ago, when Malati devi asked me to organize the entertainment for the Festival of Inspiration. With caution (and naivete), I agreed.

At last, in the culmination of months of work, I traveled up to New Vrindavan for the final showdown.

Saturday morning dawned very cold and very, very windy. So windy, in fact, that the gigantic rented tent was on the verge of blowing to the sky and a crew of men dismantled it mid-morning.

There went the prasadam and entertainment facility.

A crew of us regrouped in Malati's office and mapped out Plan B - we decided to move the entertainment to the templeroom.

Little did I know that we'd get to Plan-freakin'-Z by the end of the night.

A little while later, I was absorbed in bhajans in the templeroom when every single light flickered off and died. Pujaris brought out hurricane lamps to light the altars, and seminars made do with lamps and flashlights. The entire temple complex had not a drop of electricity.

We would have to run the entire evening program off of a generator.

A very dinky generator.

I began to feel anxious. Two hours before showtime, the hired sound people told us that we couldn't plug in our mics and speakers to their sound board. The generator could surge and blow the whole, expensive thing.

Translation: "Go find your own sound system."

A half an hour later, because of some 'family emergency', the light and sound people vanished without a goodbye. I never saw them again.

A cold sweat began to form on my brow. Mic channels? Wireless and cordless mics? Sound boards? Generators? Surges?

Oh God, help me!

Ha! And God helped me! He sent Govinda Ghosh and Krishna Balaram, two talented gurukulis. They smattered together a sound system of several sound boards, CD players, and wireless and handheld mics, all connected to our one power source - the generator.

By the time the first act began, we were running an hour late... but we had full light and full sound.

Performance after performance we danced on the edge, playing everything by ear in the dark. At one point, I moved out from behind our side wing curtain and looked out onto a sea of people. A SEA. People stood up two or three deep on all edges of the templeroom. The crowd roared and watched spellbound every moment.

At the conclusion of the final act, a wave of relief and triumph crashed over me. My friend Jvala and I hugged each other. "We DID it!" I cried. "And we did it with bliss."

"Girl, you just got a degree in Crisis Management," she laughed.

At 2am, I finally laid my head to my pillow in the women's asram on the third floor of the temple. I wondered to myself: "Bhakti, would you do this again? No, seriously?"

Suddenly, I heard shrieks of glee from down the hall. I blearily opened my eyes. And there - from the hallway, a bright stripe of light shone through the bottom of the door.

I closed my eyes and grinned. 

I would live it all over again, every single insane moment. 

Life is nothing if not an adventure, a risk, a dance on the edge of life for Krishna.

 

 

The beautiful Gopal Nathaji deity in New Vrindavan - the King of crisis management.

Japaholics Anonymous

Manu wrote this blog post several weeks ago (you can read it here) about an alcoholic who falls to his knees every morning to pray to God to give him the strength to be sober for that day.

This man has fallen to his knees for forty years. He's been sober for forty years.

In connection with chanting the holy name, I realize that I'm that alcoholic. I've been in a space where I haven't chanted japa, and I never want to go back.

So I need to fall to my knees. I need to BEG God every single morning to please allow me to chant His name sincerely for that day, for every day, for all of my life.

Some people can be sober their whole life with no problem, just like there are people who can chant their rounds every day on the simple merit of regularity. It's a non-issue. 

But I'm like the alcoholic. I am in danger of falling away every single day. I need to pray every single day for God's grace to allow me to even wake up in the morning, to even pick up my beads, to even utter one syllable.  

And every morning, before I chant, I fall to the floor and I pray to Krishna: Please allow me to chant Your name today. Give me the strength to make it through this one day.

Just this one day.

The Installation of Sri Nitai Gaurachandra

Krishna Dhama and Gaura Shakti are two second-generation devotees who recently invited the Lord as Sri Nitai Gaurachandra into their home and into their family.   

Come and celebrate!

The family offers prayers

        

spellbound

[below photo courtesy of Jaya Radhe]

The Story of a Vow

Around five years ago, on a warm summer night in Alachua, Dattatreya, Jaya Radhe, and I sat in a circle with Bhagavad Gitas in our laps.

"So, if we're going to do this Bhagavad Gita study group, I say we have a vow in order," I declared.

"Vow?" Jaya said.

"Yeah." I put my hand in the center of our circle. "You guys in?"

Jaya slowly placed her hand on top of mine.

"I'm in," Datta said, and he placed his hand on Jaya's.

"So," I intoned. "We must vow to read, study, and complete the entire Bhagavad Gita, together."

"Agreed." Jaya said.

"Agreed." Datta said.

We looked around the circle and grinned at each other. Then I shouted, "Srila Prabhupada, ki - "

"JAI!" And our hands flew to the sky.

One night a week, we meet in one of our living rooms to read the ancient Bhagavad Gita and Srila Prabhupad's timeless words. We discuss, we debate, and we confront our issues of faith with gruelling honesty. Each one of us contribute something unique, each of us with a dynamic and perspective that balances the discussion.

But life has drawn the three of us down paths into unknown worlds, paths that have lead away from Alachua, away from each other, sometimes for months and months at a time. We all have been turned upside down, twisted inside out, and had our heart put through the washing machine a couple times.

But always, after our sojourns into the world, our paths return to the confluence of one of our living rooms on a Monday night, and to the words of the Bhagavad Gita and Srila Prabhupad.  

At the time we made our fateful vow, we all thought it would take us a year, maybe two to complete the Bhagavad Gita.

Five years later, and we're on Chapter Five. 

We've stopped trying to calculate when we'll finish, because we've all realized that there is no finish line. Through each other's association, the words of the Gita have leapt from the pages and have irrevocably changed each of our lives.   

Man, we had no idea what we were getting into when we put our hands into that circle. 

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.