Teenage Wasteland: Commentary

Gentle readers: It's difficult for me to talk about my past; I tell my story as an impressionable teenager as a cautionary tale. At the tender age of 15, as a goofy kid, I was taken into the Sonoran desert and initiated into the mysteries of peyote by men who felt it was a rite of passage into manhood. I know some of you may be shocked to hear this, but we do many things in youth that we later regret. I didn't have the moral courage to stand up to the Brujo or the Prophet. I should have been strong. I should have walked away. But these men were accepting me into their circle, where I had seen rejection in so many places. The 1960s was a time of great experimentation. I too took part in these experiments. It would be dishonest for me to deny that.


Later, when I was a student at the University of California at Los Angeles, I came across the writings of Carlos Castañeda, in a book called "The Teachings of Don Juan." In his book, he wrote about how he met a Brujo in Mexico who took him on a journey through an alternate reality.  I could see that his experience in some ways paralleled my own, but it seemed to me that he had invented an entirely new category of fiction. When I say that Mr. Castañeda's witings are fraudulent, I do so not out of any sense of prejudice, but based on my own experience. My guru maharaja said, "No amount of finite can produce the infinite," and he applied this message to the taking of mind-altering drugs. I agreed with that statement when he said it in the 1980s, and I whole-heartedly support it now.

Young people sometimes think that their elders teach on the basis of dogma or rote learning. I think it's important to speak from one's own realization. My realization about mind-altering drugs is based on no small amount of reading and study, but also from my own tragic personal experience.



We live in a society where we are constantly being told of some miracle cure or instant remedy for the pangs of material existence. I don't believe in any easy  answers. But then, I like to do things the hard way.

When my life had reached its nadir, when I was down and out in the worst way, I was fortunate enough to come in contact with the devotees  of Krishna.  They saved my life and gave me hope.  It was in their company that I was introduced to my guru and spiritual master, His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In 1976, as a condition of being initiated as his disciple, I swore to avoid illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication, and gambling, a vow I have done my best to keep ever since then.



The urge to erase one's pain with anaesthesia is a powerful temptation. But I have chosen to go through life as soberly as possible. Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita, "matra-sparshas tu kaunteya..." Life's pleasures and pains come and go. Both are temporary.

Bhagavad-gita Chapter Two 

TEXT 14

matra-sparsas tu kaunteya

sitosna-sukha-duhkha-dah

agamapayino 'nityas

tams titiksasva bharata

SYNONYMS

mātrā—sensuous; sparśāḥ—perception; tu—only; kaunteya—O son of Kuntī; śīta—winter; uṣṇa—summer; sukha—happiness; duḥkha-daḥ—giving pain; āgama—appearing; apāyinaḥ—disappearing; anityāḥ—nonpermanent; tān—all of them; titikṣasva—just try to tolerate; bhārata—O descendant of the Bhārata dynasty.

TRANSLATION

O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

PURPORT

In the proper discharge of duty, one has to learn to tolerate nonpermanent appearances and disappearances of happiness and distress. According to Vedic injunction, one has to take his bath early in the morning even during the month of Māgha (January-February). It is very cold at that time, but in spite of that a man who abides by the religious principles does not hesitate to take his bath. Similarly, a woman does not hesitate to cook in the kitchen in the months of May and June, the hottest part of the summer season. One has to execute his duty in spite of climatic inconveniences. Similarly, to fight is the religious principle of the kṣatriyas, and although one has to fight with some friend or relative, one should not deviate from his prescribed duty. One has to follow the prescribed rules and regulations of religious principles in order to rise up to the platform of knowledge because by knowledge and devotion only can one liberate himself from the clutches of māyā (illusion).