April 18th, 2011 A Writer of Pieces New format--I will begin with a poem written on the day of its

printing. Then I will print random excerpts of books I have printed over the last 30 years. I hope this variety will be pleasing. Poem for April 18th Kaulini Mataji and Nandarani are coming for lunch. We will serve ravioli, although we usually dont share them with guests. They are special. Kaulini finally repossesses her house as swamis crew leaves. She speaks wondrous ordinary speech holds our attention. Nandarani is here to catch up on much typing of the autobiog. and see if shes willing to surrender here for life. Sixteen rounds done by four A.M. slithering them rapidly through mind before Narayana comes. Its so nice his presence in the room, submissive disciple applying to take his own disciples, thats just right. Gurudasa typing the daily Internet appreciative, we hear many people read, thats satisfying and surprising. A person shouldnt work for reward, should be

humbler than the blade of grass. Krishna will be pleased with us if we do our yoga class and pray to keep writing from the life of service. You shouldnt run the well dry, have to find new ways to look at it. New insights on the years and activities even if there is some repetition. I pray for a loosed tongue and words to glorify Krishna and Prabhupada and remember who I was all the many years of serving them. Krishna says He is controlling the material nature and beyond that He resides in Goloka with His chosen ones. We all aspire to join Him there but you have to qualify with total surrender for that. Dont think I have achieved the adhikara but am totally dependent on gurus mercy. OLD FRIENDS From Here is Srila Prabhupada August 6, 1991 I am looking for a way to start remembering Srila Prabhupada again. I feel apart from him, with no way to connect.

In the Antwerp temple this morning, I found my way back to him. During a Tulasi arati, the pujari finished offering the ghee wick to Tulasi and handed it to a grhastha who was standing nearby. The devotee hesitated for a splitsecond, then turned and offered the flame to me. I knew the flame should first be offered to Srila Prabhupada, but I reached out and touched it anyway. I didnt want to embarrass the devotee because he didnt follow the proper etiquette, but I should have said something. The flame should have first been offered to Prabhupada. So here I am, beginning another book about Prabhupada with a feeling of regret. Prabhupada should be the center of my life, but I continue to take his place. Still, I am hopeful. I vow to improve. The Antwerp temple worships a painting of the Panca-tattva as their main Deity. To the right of it they have placed a small photo of Srila Prabhupada. He is sitting relaxed in a chair, wearing a red cable-knit sweater. His garland is made of fragrant gardenias. Prabhupada is clapping his hands and holding them forward. When the lighting is focused right on the photo, Prabhupadas hands look like they are coming right out of the picture. It gives the photo an amazingly lifelike effect. Srila Prabhupadas eyes are shining and he seems pleased, thoughtful, and grateful at the same time. I think he was looking out at a gathering of his disciples when the photo was taken. He looks deeply moved at how these fallen Westerners have been transformed into servants of the Vaisnavas by Lord Caitanyas mercy. The photo was distributed to the temples in this zone during the Prabhupada marathon last year. It has a printed statement at the bottom: If you want to please me, distribute my books. I think, Oh, this photo was put together with that statement to create some propaganda about book distribution, and I find myself losing touch with Prabhupada in the photo and becoming distanced from the mood it was distributed in. But then I realized I am sorry I cannot enter deeply into pleasing Srila Prabhupada by book distribution. It is not just propaganda. This is a way to please Prabhupada, and yet . . . you, dear reader, and I too, we can please Prabhupada. We can distribute his books. We can read his books. We can please Prabhupada by the simple devotional acts we perform under his direction. Prabhupada is glancing compassionately at all of us from this photo because he is pleased by our offering. We should never doubt this. Srila Prabhupada, I accept this method you have offered me to resume

meditation on your lotus feet, through the regret I feel for having taken the flame before you. Nevertheless, I have confidence that I will rectify my wrongs. And I have confidence that this service of writing you have given me will help. You said, Keep on with this business of writing articles . . . go on writing something glorifying the Lord and put our philosophy into words. Writing means to express oneself, how he is understanding the philosophy. So this writing is necessary for everyone. Let me write the true story of coming to you each day, despite the distractions and forgetfulness and poverty in my heart. Let me glorify you. Prabhupada, you are not a plaything. You are the solemn director of my life, the boss I report to. More than that, you are my angel-guide, the representative of Supersoulmy only access to inconceivable Krishna. You are the one who will meet me at the end. Im trying to limit my baggage so that I can rush to your lotus feet unencumbered. One should go to the guru not with nonsense but to surrender. The sastras state, Who needs a guru? That person seeking the absolute truth. Yet even the seeker of the absolute truth has problems. He doesnt want to take his problems and dump them at the feet of the guru, but where else will he put them? He has to be honest, not just the picture-perfect disciple who puts on neat tilaka and bows down reciting properly-enunciated pranams. The disciple has to let the guru get at his heart. My point is, I just want to find as many ways as possible to enter Prabhupada consciousness and to break through the barriers that prevent me from loving, surrendering to him, enjoying his books, and serving him twenty-four hours a day. From Talking Freely to My Lords I waved the incense, flame and flower and place a drop of water in the palm of each devotee as they came to water her. Touch her earth, dance around. For twenty years, I never thought deeply

about the meaning of the song: I beg you to make me a follower of the cowherd damsels of Vraja . . . Thus within my vision I will always behold the beautiful pastimes of Radha and Krishna. Touch her earth, dance around. Meager Resources Gunshots, loud and more of them so much trouble in each life, and me with meager resources. A disciple wrote me, You tell us to follow the rules but we need to be hugged, your philosophy doesnt grow corn and run oxen. People hurt us and play games, so what are you going to do? We dont see you as the one who can heal. I go out the back door into the woods, come back healed but not enough. Who can help the deer? From Photo Preaching Diary, December 24 Take care to change the particulars. Leave no fingerprints or footprints behind. Theyll find you in the end anyway. Its just a matter of time. This is a journal. I dont know why, but I like to keep it. Our plans: We will leave tomorrow and be on the road. An undercover man doesnt usually keep a diary. Only fools leave evidence. But there is a method to this.

We have heard about Krishna. Who hasnt? He is the Supreme Being, although most people only know Him as God. We want to be counted on His side because He always wins. Thats because He is time, death. O Govinda, the whole world likes to hear Your names chanted and to become attached to You, but the demons flee on hearing You approach. This is the year when they are exerting more control. My eraser will hide my errors. In the end, Ill die with my secrets. Rimbaud died in the bed under which he had stashed his goldhis passage-money to hell. The defeatist mood: the albatross thinks, Since they are trying to control me, I might as well surrender to them. Or at least when I die, I wont have to worry about being caught anymore. Perhaps Ill be vindicated at death. Something is happening but you dont know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? From With Srila Prabhupada in the Early Days: My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume I Although there was underlying friction with my relatives, I kept up contact with them, but my relationship with them had changed. I decided to take a portfolio we had made to my older sister. Prabhupada had devised a scheme to solicit large donations from high-class people. We had gathered materials to convince prospective donors of our authenticityphotocopies of news articles like the one that had appeared in the New York Times about our chanting in Tompkins Square Park, the National Enquirer article entitled, New Indian Religion Gets You Higher Than LSD, and the favorable article from the East Village Other. I didnt know many respectable people beside my relatives, so I decided to try preaching to them first. I took the New York Central line out of Times Square and headed north for an hour. I brought with me the original edition of Prabhupadas Easy Journey to Other Planets. Reading this book, I had a supramundane experience. While waiting for the train and during the ride, I actually perceived spiritual reality. I became completely convinced of what Prabhupada wrotethat the existence of transcendental reality is separate from material surroundings. It was exciting to read this.

As soon as I reached my sisters home, I immediately preached Krishna consciousness. She said, Oh, this is typical of you. Whatever you get into, you really get into it completely. How long is this going to last? I said, Oh no. This is it. I explained to her that we should not be attracted to lumps of flesh. The spiritual world is a reality. She listened without arguing. Then her husband came home, and he was friendly. He was a stock analyst quickly rising to success in the New York Stock Exchange. I preached to him that wealth is not everything in life. I quoted the Bible. Christ says that it is harder for a man attached to his wealth to get into the kingdom of heaven than it is to put a camel through the eye of a needle. He didnt like this, although I was quoting Christian scripture. Both he and my sister tolerated me until I asked for a donation. They flatly refused. It was late afternoon and I thought to myself, Well, thats it. I tried. Swamiji sent me. I preached the best I could. I said to them, So, I think I have to go now. My sister became alarmed. Wait a minute. Just stay and sit and talk. We heard you out. Weve talked about your spiritual life. Now lets just relax. There are other things. She wanted to relate to me as brother, but I persisted in wanting to leave. My sister continued, Youve talked only about Krishna consciousness. Are you some kind of fanatic? Is that all you can talk about? Why are you saying you have to go now just because we wont give you a donation? Im sorry, I said, I have to go. Theres nothing for me to do here. I dont want to talk about anything but Krishna consciousness. I may have been slightly fanatical because I was clinging to Krishna consciousness, which Srila Prabhupada had so recently given us. My brother-in-law drove me to the train station. This isnt just something sentimental, I told him. Its not foolish. Its transcendental loving service to the Lord.

I understand, I understand. He tried to show me that he reflected seriously about spiritual things. That was the last time I saw my sister. When I returned to Prabhupada I was happy to tell him about my preaching mission. Swamiji is my real father, I thought. Everything else is maya. Having experienced the world of maya, I happily entered Prabhupadas room, although I had failed in getting money. After returning from my sisters house, I valued the Krishna conscious atmosphere at 26 Second Avenue much more. Prabhupadas room was as precious to me as the inner sanctums were to the Egyptian kings. It was filled with intense vibrations of his familiar love for us. I told Prabhupada about my visit to my sister, and he was glad I had tried, even though I had returned without a donation. Prabhupadas compassion was one of his greatest qualities. He had no attraction for characters like us, but he didnt show it. He only saw the spirit soul within us. Thats the wonderful caliber of a spiritual person. Prabhupada let us come close to him. He treated us so nicely that we wanted to give up our relatives and live with him. Forgotten Slokas These foolish things were not observed by the madmen They missed the poignant ray. They forgot the essence saw only the outside of the cream puff or the guru growing old and forgetting a Sanskrit verse here and there. Please see my essence dependent on You. Whatever I speak comes from You. You, Lord, write all the articles and poems, but You give them different names

#2 Good tiomes were easier then. They didnt know to what extent evil lurked within. Inside lust and wrath or they did but had capacity to bounce back and be joyful. He could play with the best. And I paid attention to what I was doing. Walked under a darkening sky. #3 Stormy weather ever since me and the movement aint been together. It keeps raining all the time. Dont know why theres no let-up. Ever since I forgot my place and found who blessed us all and gave us our lifes work. Now I regret and hope its not too late. I count on Him taking me back remembering our And his disciples will be my friends. But its true I have some handicaps and dsome blessing for alone work. He played strong and manly and Im his follower forever. Pure devotees such as the Pandavas want to see Krishna, and in Vrndavana _____ --who are so dear to Him, we cannot even imagine the heart-wrenc hing se[parathion of Radha and Krishna. Devotees who never met Krishna may also feel separation from Him by hearing about Him from pure devotees. Coinsider Rukhminis hearing about Krishna and wanting to marry him. And the Pulinda woman. O Krishna, save me, Ive lost my sense of discrimination. Ive fallen into the well of pride. You poor louse, you poor beggaryou think you are better than your brothersits sickening how you do that on the sly. Laugh at you, ort cry.

I know you are a pipsqueak for sure. Wouldnt stand up in a fight. Dont know how a typist, skinny, scaredy like you climbed in the hierarchy of ISKCON like you did, to the very top of presumption, the mahabhagavatas of the 1980s. Take it home, youre a good boy at a Sunday _____ let by Dolphy, and think how you can dovetail it, imp[rovise. I am the only one in the room writing this. I believe you have to be on Sunday groove. Do what you want. No, not always, not exactly. Tell your doctor, The psyche angle is coming up. I have so many free days in a row. Im wondering, Why be a hermit, always dissatisfied? ___ I used to be a manmager, and then wanted to be free of it and travel as a sannyasi in the USA. Restless. Plan a trip abroad, but after one day, stop. Tell my secretary, Find me a writing retreat. Schedule a several-month stay in a holy dhama, but after several weeks of harassing meetings asked to get out of there. Where is safe? Where is desirable? Take shelter of Krishna. What does that mean for each of us? Some are so eager to be in Vrndavana at karttika and make prayer there and feel uplifted. Hurry, go, before you die. But others feel tied down by responsibilities in the West. Or they make the best of it here, justify themselves . . . Afraid of the air, the guns, the glint in the terrorisdts eyes. Keep writing, wrioting, risking journalist, turn in your story from Pakistan front lines. Your Vrndavana journal. The taxi ride. The dead cat (not ours). The first you see and what you think. The first Godbrother you see, first pranamas and pleasantries exchanged. Dont be so bitchy, smile, admit youre a fool, roll in dust (awkward). When the temple president asks, Please Maharaja, give a SDrimad Bhagavatam lecture, you say, GHive me a week to settle in. Let cat out the front door. He walks along the top of the wall. Dont shut the door on him. Let him wander as he likes. What about your own walk? No, theres not enough time. We drive again to Karlo, where Curlilocks takles my denture and says things I cant understand because of his Irish accent.

Dont bne arty, be true. Let go and make something new and interesting. Performance Jitters Satsvarupa? Yo! Where? Pver here,. Soir, Im having a three day seminar, one meeting a day with my disciples. Hmph! You dont like? You dont like? I dont like the look on your face. Toop fat and too many chins. Go report to the correction board. As we ride out there I ask him iof hes seriously considering raising a family. Yes, but for the time being, they dont. IO wont tell you here. I take off my sdocks and lie down in bed. I dont need to take Valerian root every night to sleep. Judst get comfortable. Ill b e on the asana again tomorrow, answering as best I can.