The Critical Moment

In the valley community of Nova Gokula in Brazil, electricity had been out all evening. I had just put my journal aside for the night and was about to blow out my candle. I looked at the flimsy column of wax and felt a flutter of unease. How easy to knock this candle over, I thought. I carefully waved my hand to extinguish the little flame and the room fell dark.

My mind was drifting off to sleep when bloodcurdling screams shattered the night. Shrieks, one after another after another.

I jumped out of bed, flung open my door. Across the way in the other half of the guesthouse, a woman burst from her door, screaming. Powerful orange flames poured from the door and window.

The woman dashed away and up the hill towards the temple.

The candles, I thought.

Immediately, instinctively, I knew that this fire was all-consuming. I gaped in disbelief. Parama Karuna, the gurukuli who owned the guesthouse, had also emerged from his room in his pajamas. It took several moments for the sight to register. Then, “No, no, no!! Senor Supremo, no!” he cried out. He tried to retrieve a water hose, but it was puny. I sensed that even if we had had fire extinguishers, they would have been useless.

I dashed back into my room, heart pounding. I grabbed my purse, chanting beads, passport – go, go, go, stuff my things in my suitcase and drag it out to the lawn. The flames climbed higher and higher and began to devour neighboring rooms. Wooden rafters began to cave and the ceramic roof tiles collapsed in crashes. 

Parama and his wife Katyayani began to dump out mattresses from the rooms. I also grabbed mattresses and whatever else I could. “Oh, Senor Supremo!” Parama kept crying out. He had grown up for some time here in Nova Gokula, Brazil. Only one week before, he and his wife had worked so, so hard to renovate this place as a service to the community. For a week straight they had worked sometimes 15 hours a day, painting, cleaning, buying everything brand new and beautiful.

And now… ashes.

From up the hill at the temple, repeated cries of the conch shell rang out throughout the valley. Help, help. Soon enough, devotees in their pajamas came running, their faces a mixture of shock and determination to help.

I was immobile. I stood at a distance in awe and fear at the awesome sight of the all-devouring inferno. The smoke and flames reached high into the black sky. I was standing so far away but still I could feel the heat on my skin.

I had these moments in the escape and in observing this fire that this is my moment of death. The house is my body, the flames of death are approaching.

The fear goes to the core.

I had had time to save my things tonight, but with death I can save nothing. Nothing. Death is unstoppable, there is nothing and no one for me at that time.

Only Krishna.

Soon enough, I was shaken from my reverie and I dove into the salvage efforts. By the time firefighters arrived, the fire had smoldered down to coals, leaving only a broken shell of what this place used to be.

***

NOTE: The fire had started from leaving a candle unattended. No one got hurt. 

Parama Karuna and his wife Katyayani are in the process of rebuilding the guesthouse. Their deep intention is to usher in fresh hope and energy to Nova Gokula in service of Srila Prabhupad. 

They will be rebuilding the guesthouse in a similar way as ISKCON's Life Membership program - people can invest in the guesthouse and stay for a portion of the year every year. If you are interested in this investment, please contact Vaikuntha Murti Prabhu at vaikmurti@hotmail.com.

On Purpose

Last summer, at a high-end salon school in New York City, I received a free haircut.

Hairdressers are famous for getting their clients to talk, aren't they? Amanda was a loving, soothing presence who got me to talk. I had gone to the salon in a purple sari, and so she inquired about my faith and I shared with her about my life, about Krishna.

In return, what Amanda shared with me felt like Paramatma, the Lord in the heart, speaking to me through her.

She shared about life purpose.

She had had a middle school English teacher instruct the class to write out their life purpose. Amanda had replied, "I want to be a hairdresser."

The teacher said, "Yes, but what's your purpose to being a hairdresser?"

"Well... to make people feel loved, nurtured; to feel absolutely beautiful inside and out."

"There you go."

That moment had changed her life.

For three hours, Amanda and I connected while she washed, cut, and styled my hair, her teachers looking on and scrutinizing her work. I felt deeply loved and nurtured by Amanda's gentle hands and thorough work. We were the last to finish for the day, and all the other student stylists exclaimed at my beautiful haircut and style, the teachers were impressed. I felt beautiful inside and out.

If this was Amanda's life purpose, she was living it.

Before I left, I said to Amanda,  "You want to know my life purpose? I want to be the teacher who asks those kinds of questions to people who were like you were in school."

What's the purpose behind being a teacher?

I want to inspire others to move along the path of love - to inquire, search, serve.

So... what's your purpose? 

Missing Puzzle Piece

My parent's deities, Sri Radha Raman, have needed a bath and new clothes for awhile. So this morning I polished Their brass forms with tilak and lemon juice. Cotton balls came away blackish. I dressed Them in fresh clothes. I had actually designed and ordered these clothes five years ago when I had been in Vrindavan, India. 

When at last I placed Sri Radha Raman back upon Their altar, I just sat there and gazed at Their bright faces. They looked so happy, so beautiful. 

I physically felt as though my heart became complete. There was this curious sensation in my chest, like a missing puzzle piece had just been placed there.  

Carry Me

Exactly one year ago, I was in the holy land of Mayapur in India. I was snuggled in my bed, and while my roommate was sleeping, I was reading the Bhagavad Gita by flashlight.

I write this now in a dark car in Hawaii, waiting to go inside a temple for a ceremony. The light shines from my phone a bit like a flashlight.

It's strange to realize that two moments in time are so far apart yet so close. So much has transpired since that night long ago in India - images of the past year seem to whirl through my mind. Images of India, New York, Brazil, now Hawaii. Moments of dancing in kirtan, waiting in airports, listening to my spiritual master speak, weeping beside a river, gazing up at the golden forms of Pancha Tattva, laughing until my sides ache with my mother, whispering confessions of my heart to Sri Radha Murlidhara.

So much has happened, so much. I am humbled by the way the river of life carries me to my next destination. I am learning to stop fighting the current. Go with the flow.

So here's to the next year filled with many adventures of soul. May I stay in the river and may these waters carry me to unchartered shores of love.

Wonder

When I was 17, for several months I lived at this quiet retreat center / temple in Hawaii, doing some accounting service. Some days would go by when I would not see or talk to another soul. I lived in a deep, otherworldly silence.

I would go on long japa meditation walks in the morning. I saw God at every step, I felt Him with every breath. I saw God in the vast reflections of the sky in giant puddles. Or when I would take off my eyeglasses, the sun would shine through the canopies of leaves in millions of pentagons of light, like waterfalls of glitter, and I would marvel at God's engineering. Or I would kneel down and stare at the way rain would create patterns in the soil. There was this one plant that, when its leaves were gently stroked, would react by folding in on itself like a shy child.

Sometimes on my walks I would put aside my chanting beads and sing songs at the top of my lungs. The cows and horses would turn to look at me curiously, even stop chewing their cud. I befriended a horse - I named him Hayagriva.

At night, I was teaching myself how to play harmonium on this old, beat-up instrument. I would sit on a picnic bench outside and sing sacred songs and the holy name for hours. My mind would wander the windswept hills and the clear blue line of the ocean's horizon. When night fell, billions of diamond stars would emerge against the blue-black velvet sky.

The line between this world and the next would blur. When I was living there and also in the many years since, I have acknowledged that this was one of the most beautiful, profound times of my life. I seemed to be discovering something and someone so much greater than myself. It was a time when I thought that if this was what it was like to devote my life to loving God exclusively, then I would gladly become a nun.

In the years since, I have developed my desire to be married and one day have my own children. I pray that I may approach marriage with this same sense of love and wonder. And maybe one day, when my child is a teenager, I'll let him or her go spend some time at a quiet retreat center in Hawaii.

No Other Way

I write this in the midst if the 12 Hour Kirtan in Atlanta. The mridanga beats surround me in waves and pulse with the rhythm of my heart. I can feel the vibration in my chest. The kartals ring through the night. The singer's voice twirls and dances through the air and carries me down the river of the holy name. The holy name has swirled all around me all day; hour after hour after hour. Now that night has fallen I can feel the holy name in my veins. I'm surrounded by others whose veins also flow with the holy name.

I have danced all night - we ladies would put a disco to shame! Our skirts swirled, our feet moved in blurs, our grins shone.

Now the kirtan is drawing to a close, voices ring out from wall to wall, and the final note is hit. Applause arises. Quiet moments follow. Then someone calls out the sacred verse and we all join him: "harer nama harer nama harer nama eva kevalam, kalau nastyeva nastyeva nastyeva gatir anyatah."

In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy the only means of deliverance is chanting the holy name of the Lord. There is no other way. There is no other way. There is no other way.

Then, the lights turn on and we start to mingle. I sit here and write this on my phone, and all I want is to feel the vibration of the mridanga within my chest, in my heart.

The Sound of Silence

I walk through the cold and dark streets, the city night so quiet to me. I enter the park and walk past sludgy snow piled up against empty benches. Round street lamps bob in the night like so many candle flames. The almost full-moon hangs in the sky, surrounded by one or two glittering stars. The trees are all bare.

I gingerly sit on a cold bench before the Prabhupad Tree. I glance up at bare branches which seem to reach for the sky. Almost 50 years ago, Prabhupad came to sit under these branches to sing the holy name.Through his kirtan, he transformed hearts, he transformed the world.

Now, the word is silence - I seem to be surrounded by so much silence.

Every time I come here I feel this silence, and in that silence the emotion of gratitude always emerges. I feel grateful to Prabhupad for giving me a reason to live. I feel grateful that he persevered. I feel grateful to be breathing and to be on the path of love, true love.

I close my journal and rise to my feet, gazing at the Tree. I then kneel to the ground and touch my forehead to the cold concrete bricks in obeisance. When I stand again, I whisper, "Thank you Srila Prabhupad," and turn around to leave.

Walking away, I can still hear the silence.