A Day of Harinama Madness. Part 10!

We've reached the double-digits, as the madness continues, and our up-scale clientèle of Manhattan nightlife-goers continue to get treated to the Holy Name. Click here to join us!

"Excuse me, I'm passing out this wonderful book"

Just got back from eight days and nights distributing the transcendental literature of His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. I traveled with the expert distributor himself, HG Ananda Vidya Prabhu, disciple of HH Danavir Goswami, in the legendary white Dodge Sprinter sankirtan van.

Being quite an independent-minded person, this is a very ideal service for me. No spaced-out hassles. No uncontrollable disorganization. Just you, the books, Krishna and Prabhupada's mercy, and the people of the world.

We began on "Black Friday", the dreaded day-after-Thanksgiving shopping-a-thon in the assorted malls of Pittsburgh PA, getting out a lot of books and hopefully pushing a few more people away from the dying goose that is materialistic culture.

We also enjoyed HG Caitanya Prabhu almost getting tasered by some serious rent-a-cops, and also some serious "life stories" from our main man, Bhakta Cosmo.

The rest of the week was spent in various colleges in Ohio (The University of Akron, Kent State, Youngstown State). As Ananda Vidya truthfully stated, the kids in Ohio are real sweet and open to higher knowledge.

The real treat for myself was meeting so many different people and sharing a few moments of loving interaction beyond the material mundane. Even if they couldn't take a book, there was a lot of warmth shared in the early-winter wind.

My personal M.O was to find the main library, stand outside of its main doors for hours straight, and sublimely shove Gitas and Isopanisads into the hands of many who walked by. My "sales pitch" was to tell the kids these books were about higher knowledge, and practical techniques, like mantra meditation, to get rid of stress and come to a clearer view of reality.

I always tried to make the exchanges personal, asking them their name and what they were studying (biology and arts mainly). I even met a gentleman from Ann Arbor, Michigan, my abode of the last seven years of my life.

The only real difficulties were a lot of second-hand cigarette smoke, the occasional uncomfortable conversation with a "born-again" (hey, I got no problem with reading the Bible!), and the sometimes austere traveling conditions (cold sleeping conditions, in-van heaters that took a bite out of your sleeping bag if you got too close, and no hot-and-spicy maha-prasad).

But these were small sacrifices to make, and I surely got the purifying effect I was looking for before heading off to India next week.

My main realizations were that so many of these bright, young students are like "ripe fruits", waiting for something higher to guide them forwards. As they took Prabhupada's books, we leave it in his capable hands to give them that new vision into what is real and what is love.

Also, I realized more and more that Krsna is certainly the doer. Even at my most spaced-out and unmotivated, still some books left my cold hands, for warm, new hands. I take no credit (I've always had quite an aversion to being a salesman), and I pray to be able to become more and more of an instrument for the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Indeed, I have no other alternative in this world.

A Day of Harinama Madness, Part 9!

Boys will be boys on Saturday night on 1st Ave in Manhattan. I mean, what else is there to do besides chant the Holy Name at the top of your lungs. The brahmacaris from the Bhaktivedanta Ashram in Manhattan and from New Vrindaban in the holy hills of west Virginia certainly can't think of any better to do. The proof is in the pudding!

Click here for quite a sidewalk parade.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Meditation: 2:3:18

It is once again time for a guided meditation on the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic knowledge, the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

I humbly ask you to read first the translation and Bhaktivedanta purport to today's verse, the 18th verse from the Third Chapter of the Second Canto

taravaḥ kiḿ na jīvanti
bhastrāḥ kiḿ na śvasanty uta
na khādanti na mehanti
kiḿ grāme paśavo 'pare

Do the trees not live? Do the bellows of the blacksmith not breathe? All around us, do the beasts not eat and discharge semen?

Prabhupada sums up the whole darn situation pretty straight when he writes in the purport that "The modern man wants to live forever by the advancement of material science, and there are many foolish theories for prolonging life to the maximum duration. But the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam affirms that life is not meant for so-called economic development or advancement of materialistic science for the hedonistic philosophy of eating, mating, drinking and merrymaking. Life is solely meant for tapasya, for purifying existence so that one may enter into eternal life just after the end of the human form of life."

This pushing forward of tapasya at the expense of personal enjoyment is one of the foundations of the revolution in consciousness that we are trying to spread via the teachings of the parampara, and it is one of the most difficult aspects. After all, we know from our own personal experience, via our cultural upbringing, especially in the West, that we aren't exactly chomping at the bit to give up all we find comfortable, pleasurable, and soothing.

Prabhupada was keenly aware of this. He knew because of the various sundry influences of the age of Kali, we were not meant for the traditional forms of tapasya like sitting and fasting and controlling the breath in the examples of Parkisit Maharaja and Dhruva Maharaja.

In the purport to SB 10:3:34-35, Prabhupada writes "human life is meant not for becoming a hog or dog, but for tapo divyam [SB 5.5.1], transcendental austerity. Everyone should be taught to undergo austerity, tapasya. Although it may not be possible to undergo tapasya like that of Påçni and Sutapä, the sästra has given an opportunity for a method of tapasya very easy to perform—the sankirtan movement.....yet simply by chanting the Hare Krsna mahä-mantra (kirtanäd eva krsnasya [SB 12.3.51]), one can become so pure that one becomes free from all the contamination of this material world (mukta-saìgaù) and goes back home, back to Godhead (paraà vrajet). "

So, there's no doubt about it. We can't avoid austerity, we have to give up material sense enjoyment, but this seemingly impossible process is made easy simply by chanting, with all sincerity, the Hare Krsna maha-mantra. This is the mercy of the panca-tattva.

HG Balarama Chandra Prabhu spoke nicely in relation to this in his Bhagavatam class this morning. One point he made was that when we think of establishing varnasrama, there is a tendency among devotees (myself included) to think of farm life, cow protection, and the like.

These aspects are certainly essential to Prabhupada's vision of varnasrama, but we must not forget or ignore the actual developing of the varnas, or the development of brahminical consciousness, as being the most important aspect. We can't begin to develop self-sufficient lifestyles in our communities without the proper consciousness preceding it.

This summer, I remember being told that one devotee who was visiting had been helping in some harvesting in our Garden of Seven Gates here at New Vrindaban, and at one point he suddenly got very fed up and stopped, saying that he wasn't there to do "slave work." I was very much taken aback by his strong, negative response to some very needful service. I understand more now that his consciousness was not in the right place to understand and appreciate the austerity of the service he was performing.

For anyone who harvests crops, and for anyone who's not used to harvesting crops, it is austere work. As we really don't like in this age to have to undergo austerities, unless we have developed a strong consciousness as to why we should perform services that are difficult for us, we will think of it simply as "slave work."

Chanting the maha-mantra is our main austerity, and as we develop an appreciation and real taste for the Holy Name, then we will not find other austerities so difficult.

I also like Prabhupada's image of the "polished animal" or "persons who are simply engaged in planning a better type of animal life consisting of eating, breathing and mating". These "polished animals cannot benefit suffering humanity, for an animal can easily harm another animal but rarely do good."

By doing all we can to get out onto the streets and spread the resounding sound of the Holy Name, we can provide the actual benefit, the highest benefit. We can strip away the polish, break down the animal instincts, and let the light of the soul we shine through. When we actually experience that bliss, how can anything in Krsna consciousness be considered an austerity?

A Day of Harinama Madness, Part 8!

Our fearless transcendental warriors now emerge from the cavernous subways and hit the steamy nighttime streets of 1st Ave in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Check out via the magic of recorded video, produced by the one-and-only Bhakta Kerel of NYC fame.

Click here and here for all the mayhem!

And remember, no one may care about your soul if you smell bad...