Surrender

Dear Friends: 

I started this blog a year ago, on November 11th. My idea was to post something every day about my spiritual path, to see if I could make any progress. Progress towards what? Surrender. So the name of my blog, "Journey to Surrender."

I'm not sure if I've made any progress. Sometimes it seems that I'm running as fast as I can just to stay in the same place. Despite my best efforts, surrender eludes me.

In the last year I've written 587 blog posts, some of them better than others. People seem to like the story about Shakuntala. "Sons of Nectar" has more than 160 page views. By the time you read this, I should have reached my goal of 40,000 page-views. That anyone at all might read my reflections is inspiration enough for me to continue.

Since November of 2014, I've traveled to Russia with destinations in St. Petersburg and Moscow. I gave some talks to the truth seekers and Vaishnavas there, who gave me great inspiration and encouragement. I traveled to Kiev, Ukraine and spoke with the devotees there who work with full-dome and Vedalife projects.  I had great talks, made some new friends, met with the old friends, chanted hare krishna, made plans for kirtan on ice in Red Square, drank copious amounts of black tea and was blessed by many holy acolytes of divine love and bhakti-yoga.

I traveled to Bangkok, and Chiang Mai and met with my old friend and spiritual mentor Bhakti Sudhir Goswami. Bhakti Bimal Avadhuta Maharaja saw something useful in me and gave me some work on his movie about the ancient temples in Angkor Wat. I spent 3 weeks visiting elephants, drinking copious amounts of pure rich black Thai coffee and revising our script for the Cambodia Movie. I was surprised by the dedication of the Russian devotees, still further amazed by the pure bhakti of the Chiang Mai crew. We moved on to Siam Reap, Cambodia, determined to shoot a movie. Avadhuta Maharaja's energy is legend, but he worked miracles in Cambodia, penetrating the maze of jungles, directing the shoot, navigating the Apsara authority who chased after us with rickshaws and handcuffs. It was the most amazing experience in my long and checkered career. 

Back in Mexico I've dedicated 3 or 4 hours a day to writing projects including the Mahabharata, stories of the strong women and devotees of ancient India as seen as Shakuntala, Savitri, Damayanti, and Kunti. I've done my best to keep writing the blog, while maintaining correspondence with devotees in Thailand, India, China, United States, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, Australia, Mexico, Brazil and around the world. It's impossible to name all the great souls. It would take me pages and pages to properly list everyone's names. You know who you are. Some friends have taken sannyasa, others have gone off to other quarters of the world, but all of you have helped me to penetrate more deeply into the divine reality. 

Every wave is favourable. 

Meanwhile, I teach school. I've taught 2 semesters of English classes at the Universidad de Guanajuato where I work, doing my best to empower my students as well as install a sense of truth-seeking within them that they might be better equipped to handle the challenges that face them. I continue to volunteer for Libros Sin Frontiers, an organization for promoting literature and reading for Mexican children. Much of the year was taken up by my health problems, as I did my best to survive a serious heart condition. 

All of these experiences have helped encourage my faith. One of the things that intrigues me is how to continue in my faith while facing the daily challenges of life as an educator in Mexico. 

Lou Reed once sang, "You need a busload of faith to get by." I find this to be true. As I faced the quotidian crises of 2015, many people reminded me of this again in again. "Have faith," they said. But faith in what exactly? I have faith that Kṛṣṇa will protect me, in the end. But I'm not worried about death, precisely. I'm convinced that death will come in due course. I don't think this is pessimistic, but realistic. But I think that Kṛṣṇa will protect me in a higher sense, in the sense that positive and progressive immortality does exist, and that perhaps I'll get a chance to participate in the higher plane somehow. If not, perhaps I'll get another shot at service to the servants of divine in a next life.  In the end it is not mine to say.

People talk about being "Christians," but in the end it's up to Jesus, really. He's the one who gets to decide ultimately if anyone is a Christian or not. In the same way, devotees strive to be "pure" or "follow the rules," but in the end it's Vishnu who decides who's a Vaishnava.  In my time I did my share of following "rules." Lately I'm not such a good example of the rules, but I feel I'm on the path. 

So I call this space, "Journey to Surrender."The question remains, “What is surrender?” Back in the day, when we were huddled around a typewriter in the winter of 1982 at the rented blue house in Nabadwip dham, we had a long debate over the meaning of Śrīdhara Mahārāja's Prapanna-jivanamritam. In those days we had no real idea who Śrīdhara Mahārāja was. 

We saw him as a kindly uncle, who could bring us closer to Prabhupāda's teachings, now that he had left us. We felt that Prabhupāda hadn't died, that he would live forever in his teachings. But sometimes we found that he had said things that seemed to contradict each other. Sometimes he had stressed service, and other times he told devotees to just chant hare krishna. How could we reconcile all these things. Śrīdhara Mahārāja turned out to be much more than a kindly uncle. 


In him, we had found the source itself.  As we looked through his work, Prapanna-jivanāmṛtam, we found that he begins with Rūpa Gosvāmī. At the beginning of his book, he talks about surrender and then uses Rūpa Gosvāmi's definition as his point of departure for discussing surrender. With the help of the internet, I can look up references and reflect more easily. I have culled the following from different sources; when time permits I shall cite each source in its place for the deep scholars amongst you, but Sanskrit and devanagari are a bit of a typesetter's nightmare and it took me a bit of time to get some of this correctly, so I'll leave the bibliography for later. 

Surrender: Śaraṇāgati

Rūpa Goswāmī himself defines surrender, based on the teachings of Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu:

आनुकूल्यस्य सङ्कल्पः, प्रातिकूल्यस्य वर्जनम्

रक्षिष्यतीति विश्वासो, गोप्तृत्वे वरणं तथा

आत्म-निक्षेप-कार्पण्ये, षड्-विधा शरणागतिः

रूप गोस्वामी श्री सत्वत-तन्त्र॒ ७३

ānukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ, prātikūlyasya varjanam

rakṣiṣyatīti viśvāso, goptṛtve varaṇaṁ tathā

ātma-nikṣepa-kārpaṇye, ṣaḍ-vidhā śaraṇāgatiḥ

(Śrī Satvata-tantra: 73)

“Accepting what is favourable, rejecting what is unfavourable, being confident that Krishna will grant His protection, embracing Krishna’s guardianship, fully offering one’s self to Krishna, and feeling oneself to be lowly are the six aspects of Śaraṇāgati.”

Śrīla B.R. Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj composed his Prapanna-jivanāmrtam according to these 6 principles of surrender that are given in the scriptures.

Later we had the benefit of Jagat-gurudeva Govind Mahārāja's own explanation of Śrīdhara Mahārāja. He once said, “I have read so many things about these qualities of sharanagati from so many places but what Srila Guru Mahārāja has given is supreme.  And in one śloka he has given us a very nice, clear explanation of Śaranāgati that is a perfect jewel you cannot find anywhere else.

“It is the most essential prescription given anywhere for everyone to enter the transcendental service world. If you can memorize just this one śloka and put it in your heart then you will receive everything ever given in any scripture.

भागवद्-भक्तितः सर्वम् इत्य् उत्सृज्य विधेर् अपि

कैङ्कर्यं कृष्ण-पादैका-श्रयत्वं शरणागतिः

(श्री श्री प्रपन्न-जिईवनामृतम् १.३५)

bhagavad-bhaktitaḥ sarvam ity utsṛjya vidher api

kaiṅkaryaṁ kṛṣṇa-pādaikā-śrayatvaṁ śaraṇāgatiḥ

(śrī śrī prapanna-jiīvanāmṛtam: 1.35)

“Here Srila Guru Maharaj expressed that Śaranāgati means faith that Bhagavad-bhaktitah sarvam, that through devotion to Bhagavan, Krishna consciousness, you will get everything.

Bhagavan means the Supreme Personality of Godhead Kṛṣṇa who possesses all worshipable qualities—the akhila-rasamrita-murtih, the Emporium of all rasa.

“So everything you want and need—rasa, ecstasy, joy, full nourishment, etc.—will automatically come to you through His service. Your life will be glorious, successful and perfect through devotion to Lord Krishna. And not only will you receive everything you need internally, but full facility to serve Krishna will also come to you.”

वासुदेवे भगवति भक्ति-योगः प्रयोजितः

जनयत्य् आशु वैराग्यं ज्ञानं छ यद् अहैतुकम्

(श्रिमाद् भागवतम्॒ १.२.७)

vāsudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ

janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ jñānaṁ cha yad ahaitukam

(Srimad Bhagavatam: 1.2.7)

Automatically renunciation from this material world will come to you and spiritual knowledge will be revealed in your heart.

भक्तिस् त्वयि स्थिरतरा भगवन् यदि स्याद्

दैवेन नः फलति दिव्य-किशोर-मूर्तिः

मुक्तिः स्वयं मुकुलिताञ्जलि सेवते ’स्मान्

धर्मार्थ-काम-गतयः समय-प्रतीक्षाह्

(श्रि कृष्ण-कर्नामृत॒ १०७)

bhaktis tvayi sthiratarā bhagavan yadi syād

daivena naḥ phalati divya-kiśora-mūrtiḥ

muktiḥ svayaṁ mukulitāñjali sevate ’smān

dharmārtha-kāma-gatayaḥ samaya-pratīkṣāh

(Śri Kṛṣṇa-karnāmṛta: 107)

Govinda Mahārāja continued, “Moksha, liberation, will come to you with folded palms and ask, “What service shall I do for you?” Dharma,  artha, and love, will wait by her side to assist you in your service of the Lord.”

“Through a  surrender  to Kṛṣṇa everything will come to you. The Lord’s divine form and the prapanna-jivanamritam, the full nectar of a life of surrendered service, will appear in your heart. In this way we must understand that devotion for Krishna is all-in-all (bhāgavad-bhaktitah sarvam).”

Govinda Mahārāja explained, “Then Srila Guru Maharaj said, ity utsrijya vidher api kainkaryam, even if we cannot follow so many rules and regulations written in the scriptures for the guidance of conditioned souls, even if we cannot follow the standards of vidhi-marga but we are surrendered to the Lord, then our devotional mood will purchase the Lord and we will get a good result.”

 Śrīdhara Mahārāja himself explained the principle of Śaraṇāgati: “The question will remain whether I have surrendered totally or not. My ego – has it allowed me to surrender to His holy feet fully or is it self-deception? The question is there. There is no doubt that if anyone surrenders to Him totally, He will protect him – that is unquestionable. But the question remains here whether I have successfully surrendered myself to Him or not. Self-analysis. That is the truth. It is His intrinsic nature that at all times His eternal habit is that He will protect whoever comes under the shelter of His protection. That is one of His intrinsic characteristics. It cannot be otherwise. However, the question is only whether I can surrender to Him or not. To offer one’s own self. To cast one’s own self to His custody, and at the same time to go on with the idea that He will surely protect me.”

“This kind of confidence is what is meant by rakṣisyati-viśvāso (expecting the Lord’s protection). That is a particular stage of Śaraṇāgati, where one thinks, “I will have so much confidence that He will protect me from any danger. One may run to protect oneself knowing there is danger, but still he is thinking, “My guardian will save me. Whom do I care for? I don’t care for anyone. He is my master and He is there on my head, He will protect me.”

“In this stage of surrender, there is no necessity of any apprehension  from any quarter at all. Śaraṇāgati reaches to such a zenith, to such a height that not only will He save me if I go on in a right way, I shall risk everything for the Lord, and if necessary, He may come to my relief. Such audacious aggression is there. This may be found in all stages. That particular mentality is there in the ordinary soldier – he has got confidence in his general. They may take the risk of entering the camp of the enemy thinking, “The general will come and devastate them.” It may be found in many places, in many stages of life. But here, that con dence is found not in this world, but in the highest quarter. That sort of con dence, that “For whom do we care?” So much indulgence they enjoy, so much con dence they enjoy, so much faith they have in their protector that they do not care about anyone or anything. They will even go to catch a snake or a tiger.

“Jīva Gosvāmī Prabhu has discussed that goptṛtve-varaṇa (praying for the Lord’s shelter) is the main thing in the whole of Śaraṇāgati. That is the whole gist, the substance – to pray to Him for His shelter. “You are my protector.”  Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says,

dainya, ātma-nivedana, goptṛtve varaṇa

‘avaśya rakṣibe kṛṣṇa’—viśvāsa pālana

(Sharanagati: 1.3)

Dainyam and atma-nivedanam: “I can’t stand alone; I am not able to stand independently on my own legs. I must seek the shelter of He by whose grace alone I can live.” In this way the tendency of atma-nivedanam [self-surrender] will naturally come from within because I feel that I cannot stand independently: I am that insignificant and thus desire shelter.

“Then goptritve varana and ‘avaysha raksibe Krishna’—vishvasa palana. I must ardently and sincerely accept Him as my guardian and first of all I must have confidence that He will protect me: “I am not shelterless—my guardian cannot but save me.”

“That is the main thing in the whole of Śaraṇāgati and all others are subsidiary. To maintain the faith that He will save us – He cannot but do this.

The example is given by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura – the cow boys are welcoming so many risks in their life backed by the confidence that, “My friend is there and He will surely protect me.”

রক্ষ করবি তুহুঙ্ নিশ্চয জানি, পান কোরুবুঙ্ হাম যমুনা পানি

কালিয-দোখ করবি ৱিনাশা শোধোবি নদী-জল, বডাওবি অশা

শরণাগতি ৩.৯, ভক্তিৱিনোদ ঠাকুর

rakṣa karabi tuhuṅ niścaya jāni, pāna korubuṅ hāma yamunā pāni

kāliya-dokha karabi vināśā śodhobi nadī-jala, baḍāobi aśā

“Kṛṣṇa I am confident that You will protect me, so I will drink the waters of the Yāmuna. Kāliya’s venom will be vanquished. You will purify the waters of the Yamunā, and such heroic acts will increase our faith.” (Śaraṇāgati 3.6)

In a part of the Yamunā a serpent was living and his poison contaminated the whole area. But the cowherd friends of Kṛṣṇa did not care for that. At the bottom of their heart, they were so con dent of Kṛṣṇa’s continuous assistance at their back, they were going and rushing towards that poisonous thing and swallowing poison. “Oh, Kṛṣṇa is at our back, whom do I fear? We don’t fear anyone.” They are going into the Kāliya-ghāṭa, that poisonous place on the Yamunā and they are drinking that water and fainting, but without any fear. “My friend is there. We do not care for any poison or anything. He will save us. He will protect us.” They went ahead to invite danger with that confidence. “We don’t care for any danger because our support, our friend is there who has got some supernatural power.” Then Kṛṣṇa had to go and again revive them from the poisonous effect. Generally they are always in a position that they do not want that, “You protect me!” Very rarely – as in the case of Govardhana where the whole locality prayed for protection from Indra the king of heaven, when his annual worship was closed. Indra was very much enraged and he wanted to punish the general section of that group by heavy rain, hail, storm and thunder. Then the whole group came and took refuge of Kṛṣṇa, “You protect us from this great destruction.” And Kṛṣṇa managed. Otherwise they are always fostering this idea that, “He is there, our protector. We do not care for anything else. We are not afraid of any danger. He is there. He cannot but protect us.” That is the idea of surrender exemplified by the friends of Kṛṣṇa."

I'm sure I have a long way to go in my journey to surrender. But I feel I'm on the path. And sometimes I meet great souls who have been farther down the path. They appear and tell me, "It's that way," and point out the turns to take and explain some of the pitfalls. Thanks to all the great souls who have given me guidance. I hope I will get the chance to see some of you again along the path.

Sincerely,

Bhakti Vidhan Mahayogi,

Michael Dolan.

Immortality

Positive and Progressive Immortality

Doctors told me I would need a heart operation. Double bypass, they said. Yesterday I was lying on a cold narrow metal table. It was as wide as my body.

“Hold the sides with your hands or you’ll fall off,” they said.

“It’s cold.” I said.

“We’ll give you a blanket. But don’t move.”

An hour later my back was sore. They removed the probe from my right arm.

“Your arteries are too delicate.” said Dr. Lopéz. “We’ll try the leg. Hold still.”

“What about anaesthesia,” I asked him in Spanish.

“Solo en el punto de la incisión,” he said. “Only at the incision point.”

My arm throbbed.

Hospital 20 de Noviembre.

I was at Mexico City’s 20 de Noviembre Hospital, named for the Mexican Revolution that exploded in 1910 with Zapata’s armed horsemen and Pancho Villa’s bandits.

Oddly it was the 20th of November. Stranger still, it was my wife’s birthday. This hospital was my last best hope Aurora had told me. If they couldn’t help me here, there was no hope. It was basically a death sentence.

The table was cold against my back. I felt the needle in my leg. Another two hours to go. I was told that there wasn’t much hope of success. Maybe 20 per cent. But the alternative was a slow death. My one remaining artery would slowly close. A death sentence.

Samuel Johnson once observed that there’s nothing like a death sentence to focus the mind: “When a man knows he is to be hanged, it concentrates the mind wonderfully,” he said.

As a young writer, Dostoyevsky was condemned to death by firing squad for an article questioning the Tsar’s treatment of the serfs. On the day in question he was taken from his cell in manacles and frog-marched into the prison yard where the firing squad was lined up, rifles at the ready. The other condemned prisoners on death row were led in front of Dostoyevsky. The night before they had played cards together and shared a final glass of tea. The young writer saw his new acquaintances led to their marks, tied to posts, blindfolded and shot. Now it was his turn. He was led to the post. He was blindfolded, trembling in fear for his life. The firing squad was given the order. “Prepare your weapons. Aim.”

At the last moment, the sergeant at arms said, “Hold!” A uniformed officer had appeared with the order sparing Dostoyevsky’s life. His sentence had been commuted to exile in Siberia.

As a young writer, Dostoyevsky had entertained his public with stories about gamblers. Now that he had won a gamble with death, his thoughts turned to immortality. His works were informed with existential problems: “Does God exist? If not, what is the implication for our lives?” And what of immortality?

Dostoyevsky's reprieve came at the last minute...

In Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan argues with his brother Alyosha, a younger and more idealist Karamazov, saying: Без бога всё позволено. Без бога-то и без будущей жизни? Ведь это, стало быть, теперь всё позволено, всё можно делать?'”If God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted. If there is no immortality, everyone can do whatever they want.”

Pyotr Miusov, another character in the novel sums up Ivan’s views on immortality (Part 1, Book 2, Chapter 6 Pevear Volokhonsky translation, 1990) “...were mankind’s belief in its immortality destroyed, not only love but also any living power to continue the life of the world would at once dry up. Not only that, but then nothing would be immoral any longer. Everything would be permitted, even cannibalism. ...for one who believes neither in God nor in his immortality, the moral law of nature ought to change immediately into the exact opposite of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to the point of evildoing, should not only be permitted to man but should be acknowledged as the necessary, the most reasonable, and all be the noblest result of his situation.”

I want to adjust my position on the cold steel table. But one false move and the probe in leg may tremble, spoiling the surgeon’s work. I can feel the probe entering my abdomen. The pain in my right arm continues to throb. “Nothing like a death sentence to focus the mind.” I began chanting the Gayatri mantra again and again.

Om... a big yes.

Om. Come on home.

Come on, ....Om.

Bhur. Where we are. The world of exploitation, of karmic reaction.

It is the fear of karmic reaction that holds us in check; our fear that some reaction might torment us if we do not follow the moral codes of religion stays our hand from the most grotesque sinful acts. But if the soul doesn’t exist, if this life is all in all, then the most hideous crimes are possible. After all there will be no sinful reaction, so “anything is possible.”

It may be argued that the terrorists in Paris acted out of a promise of immortality, but in fact suicide is the ultimate form of egoism. Suicide and homicide are crimes. Such macabre crimes against humanity have no relation with religion; they are universally condemned by Islam, by Christianity and by the ancient wisdom traditions of India. To attempt to attain immortality through martyrdom is the ultimate act of ego. And egoism and immortality are diametrically opposed.

No immortality can be achieved through egoism. In fact, according to the laws of karma, Egoistic action chains us to the world of reaction and exploitation. No immortality can result from selfish action. Suicide and murder are the most selfish of crimes, punishable by karmic reaction according to the Hindu tradition and life in hell according to the Western one.

Of course, if there is no immortality, there is no hellish punishment for infernal crimes. “Anything is permitted,” in the words of Ivan Karamazov.

Immortality implies submission. If God exists, and if the individual soul is dependent on the absolute for his existence, the relationship must be based on submission. True immortality means surrender, Sharanagati. The opposite of surrender is Ego.

In 1944, as war raged around the globe, my gurudeva, Bhakti Rakṣaka Śrīdhara Deva Goswāmī published the first edition of Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta, a meditation in Sanskrit about the nature of immortality. In those days, he lived in a hut on the banks of the Ganges, or a five minute walk, depending on how high the river was. There were no gorgeous temples etched in gold, no marble palaces of meditation. Rice paddies etched the earth. Tigers roamed in the forests beyond the palm trees. Monkeys played in the mango tree. Massive water buffaloes led by children watered themselves in the Ganges, like black submarines.

After the passing of his own spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sāraswati Ṭhākura, Śrīdhara Mahārāja had retired to this quiet part of Nabadwipa-dhāma. He spent some time contemplating the basis of bhakti, the path of divine love. His thesis was Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta.

The title is hard to translate into English. Years later, when I first met Śridhara Mahārāja, intent on seeking his spiritual guidance, I was part of a team of so-called “scholars,” working on producing a useful translation of the work.

শ্রী প্রপন্ন-জীবনামৃতম্

I first visited the ashram of Shridhar Maharaja in the winter of 1981. At that time I met V.B., who was working on the English translation of Prapanna-jivanamritam. We stayed in a rented house down the road from the Chaitanya Saraswat Math. There were others as well, who had come for his guidance.We would rise early and attend the religious services at the temple, or mangala-aroti. As the morning progressed, we would find ourselves sitting before Shridhar Mahārāja, listening carefully to his discourse. He sat in a large wooden arm-chair, for he was a big man. And as we sat close, he would take questions on any and all subjects; his was a vast and erudite intellect, bathed in years of spiritual contemplation of divine truth. Apart from our own small problems and ideas, our main subject of discourse was the Prapanna-jīvanāmṛtam.

Shridhar Maharaja was capable of summing up big ideas in few words. His discourse was as terse as the Sanskrit of Vyāsadeva, but it required that we learned a new vocabulary. Subjective Evolution, Die to Live, Reality is By Itself and For Itself, Hegelian thought, Negative Tendency, and Positive and Progressive Immortality.

At times, in our inability to comprehend his dicion, we felt that Shridhar Maharaja’s English needed improvement. Later we discovered that we lacked a sufficient philosophical vocabulary and grammar to properly interpret his language. It wasn’t his English that was deficient, it was our capacity to grasp his meaning. We recorded his discourses. It took us years of close listening and study to realize how subtle was his understanding.

Later, as fortune would have it, I would collaborate with Bhakti Sudhir Goswāmi in bringing out a number of published works based on Shridhar Maharaja’s teachings: The Search for Shri Krishna, Reality the Beautiful; Shri Guru and his Grace; The Golden Volcano of Divine Love; The Loving Search for the Lost Servant; and Subjective Evolution of Consciousness.

With each publication we were forced to confront our inadequacies: We had to study Bengali, Sanskrit, Western philosophers such as Berkely, Hume, Locke and Hegel. We had to dig into the chronology of the Puranas, the history of India, including the Bengali Independence Movement and the arcane practices of the Gaudiya Math.

At Guardian of Devotion Press in San Jose, California we established a publishing company with our own printing press dedicated exclusively to publishing the works of Shridhar Mahārāja.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. At that moment in time we did our best to decode the inner meaning of Prapanna-jivanamrita eluded us.

Our crew of would-be saints would return from Shridhar Maharaja’s discourse to the rented blue house down the road from the ashram, across the street from rice paddies where cobras made their home. After lunch and a siesta we would all meet to discuss what we had learned. It was a great time of intense spiritual discovery. As the sun went down over the Ganges, we adjusted our oil lanterns and bent over the manuscript of the mysterious Prapanna-jivanamrita. We were to reconcile the florid translation made by an eager female disciple from the Bangla with the terse and philosophical Sanskrit. There were egos involved. Our best translator was a man from Alabama who knew some Sanskrit. He warred with the other translator whose qualification was Hindi, a language with little in common with Bengali. Above all, we had to consider what Shridhar Maharaja himself had told us.

The probe has reached my heart. My back is killing me. It’s a strain not to scream in pain. I’m exhausted. This is not really an “operation,” nobody uses that word any more. It’s a “procedure.” Both arms are bruised from so many needles and IV units. With no anaesthesia my only shelter is the holy name and the Gayatri mantram. I alternate between the two.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare.

Bhur...the world of exploitation. The sun, the stars, the planets, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda...Orion...Nebulas...

Bhuvaḥ, the mental plane, mind, dreams, emotions, ideas, Platonic reality....

Svah...The plane of intelligence...

Tat Savitur....The light...that light...savitur, savior, sabio, wisdom...sabiduria...wisdom...knowledge...the light that gives us knowledge....the sun? the light at the center of the universe....Who lights up the universe? the jīva, determined to find his way in the world of exploitation? Or God Himself? Supersoul? Paramātma, Kṣirodakṣayī Viṣṇu, Garbhodakṣayi, Karaṇodakṣayi Viṣṇu...Catur Vyuha.. The fourfold explansions of God. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.

Shridhara Maharaja had often told us that we needed to “Increase our Negative Tendency.” This is difficult to understand in light of the idea that we need to be positive. Isn’t positivity the goal? Why should we increase our “negative” tendency.

Real learning, however, takes place as a consequence of a genuine need to understand something. The very definition of “learning disability” is that we feel we know something. As long as I know something, I can’t learn. He would give the example of a piano teacher who charges two prices: One price for new students, but double-charge for intermediate students. The teacher would have twice as much work; first the student would have to unlearn everything he knew and then re-learn.

We were in much the same position, since we felt that we had already learned everything. Shridhar Mahārāja was only giving us “master classes” since we were already “masters.” The men who sought sannyāsa initiation felt they needed only a figure-head spiritual master, one who would put the stamp on their diplomas. Since they were already “spiritual masters,” getting a stamp from Shridhar Mahārāja would just make it official. Having received their stamp from him, they could go forth and initiate disciples and establish their own missions. Some of them did. Some have thousands of followers today. But Śrīdhara Mahārāja left his stamp on their spiritual lives forever.

But “increasing negative tendency” means one needs to be empty in order to be filled. To receive Divine Mercy, one must be as Saul on the road to Rome. Only when Saul realized how fallen he was he could accept the mercy of Christ. Only when Christ felt completely forsaken and abandoned in the Garden of Gethsemane could he call out to the Lord like a child unto its mother, begging for mercy. Only then can one attain true understanding and Divine Love.

As we sat in the blue house, confident with our spiritual attainments, we puzzled over the meaning of Prapanna-jivanamritam. Its translation was a purely academic matter. It was another Sanskrit book, and V.B was confident that his Sanskrit was adequate to the task of translation.

Upstairs in the blue house we had our main headquarters. A large room with a concrete floor and no furniture. There we would roll out our sleeping bags and rest. But as the sun went down over the Ganges, V.B. would light his oil lantern. He had an old Smith-Corona Typewriter, propped up on a battered trunk.

A ream of onion-skin paper, typed in tiny print and marked up with corrections was stacked on the trunk. He would consult an old Sanskrit book and peck away at his translation. I'm  a pretty good typist, so I was asked to help. You had to strike the keys with plenty of force. There wasn't much ink left in the ribbon and each time you hit a button,  the type key would punch a tiny hole in the paper.

During this time, we had a visitor. It was A.K. Swami. Originally from New Zealand, he had arrived from Vrindaban, where he had been temple president during Prabhupāda’s time. Since he had a working knowledge of Hindi and was superior by dint of being a Swāmi, he felt it only right that he be put in charge of the Sanskrit translation.

He and VB would wrangle over the meaning of a verb or a noun in Sanskrit until late at night. AK Sswami was a bit eccentric as were we all. In his days in Vrindaban, he had acquired a strange Hindu musical instrument, a Saraṅgi, a kind of violin. He would prop it on his knee and scrape it with a weird-looking bow. It produced an eerie heart-piercing sound that would scare away the monkeys in the mango tree. After we had all gone to sleep, we could hear him on the roof of the building, scratching away a mystical drone in the Bengali night.

In the morning, we would visit Shridhar Maharaja. They would try to read their translation to him. He was confident that they could take it to Govinda Mahārāja, who could smooth out the difficulties. But they insisted.

The title of the book, VB thought, might be best rendered as “Nectar of Surrender.” After all, Prabhupāda had two successful titles: Nectar of Devotion (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu) and Nectar of Instruction (Upadeṣāmṛta) both by Rūpa Goswāmī.

But Shridhar Maharaja resisted.

He didn’t seem to really like the title, “Nectar of Surrender.” One of the problems is the word Amṛta, pronounced A-MREE-TA. It’s an interested word.

The word amṛta means “deathless, immortal, eternal,” but also “nectar, ambrosia, liquor.” It’s hard to understand how one word could have such a range of meaning.

Shridhar Mahāraja’s intention in the book was to describe how surrender in divine love is both process and goal.

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.

Die to Live.

Thesis: Ego. Antithesis, No Ego, Namaḥ.

Synthesis: Surrender, Śaranāgati, Surrender.

He liked the title, “Positive and Progressive Immortality,” and insisted on this so much that the English editors and translators finally consented to using it as a subtitle, while sticking with “Nectar of Surrender.”

Shridhara Maharaja’s point was that amṛta means immortality (a mṛtyu), but not in a commplace conception. Normally, the sense of “a-mṛtyu” is negative: death-less, or im-mortal. But real eternal life should be positive. We must have a place in a higher world; a positive role to play in the spiritual world.

This may be achieved through surrender. Normally surrender also has a negative connotation. Shridhar Maharaja embraces the idea that “increasing one’s negative tendency” leads to “positive immortality.” So these two apparently negative concepts, “surrender” or “increasing one’s negative tendency” and amṛta or deathlessnes, become positive in a perfect Hegelian synthesis.

And for who?

For the jīva. The jīva refers to the conditioned soul, whose tendency for exploitation, or “positive tendency” has evolved in reverse, from the undifferentiated plane of cosmic consciousness to the world of exploitation where he resists surrender to the almighty.

Shridhar Maharaja echoed these themes in lecture after lecture. His insistence on using the expression “positive and progressive immortality” was essential to understanding the meaning of Prapanna-jivanamritam. He really eschewed an english translation, since he felt the Sanskrit was perfectly scientific.

Translators of Hegel have run into similar problems with Phenomenology of the Spirit. The word Spirit in English translates Geist in German. Geist also means Ghost. When I was a child I was taught by the Roman Catholic Church to believe in the Holy Ghost. Later that translation was abandoned for Spirit. But the problem with translation is that Spirit can also mean esprit de corps, team spirit, group spirit, party spirit, a spirited horse, or even alcohol, spirits.

Shridhar Maharaja avoided reductionism. He did not like that his carefully crafted philosophical explanations of the profound truths of spiritual life be reduced to slogans. He disliked “Nectar of Surrender” as a title, since it seemed too easy. He liked “Immortality: Positive and Progressive. In the Lives of Surrendered souls it is nectar to them.”

We devotees, coming out of a 1960s “hippie” sensibility loved the word “Nectar.”In the west, “nectar” and “ecstasy” are words much abused. Ecstasy now refers to a psychedelic drug used at rave parties, and nectar certainly has an alcoholic connotation. It was not Shridhar Maharaja’s idea to have a book title that meant something like “Surrender is fun.”

And so it went. Every evening the translators would bicker and fight over the Sanskrit, and every morning, after bathing in the Ganges, we would bathe ourselves in the sublime teachings of Shridhar Maharaja. Some progress would be made, we would wrangle over sentences and punctuation and tear up pages and retype. At some point they asked for my help as proof-reader.

It was translation as Divine Comedy. VB would try to work out a meaning from the Sanskrit and put it into English. AK Swami would go through it. The Swami would say, “This is not literary enough. We need to dignify these words.”

He began rewriting VBs prose as Elizabethan poetry. “Some people want to bring Shridhar Maharaja into the 20th Century,” he would say. “I want to return his language to the 16th Century with Shakespeare.”

In the end our translation of Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta became a turgid and incomprehensible koan. We would wait until Govinda Maharaja arrived from Calcutta, and, beaming with pride, we would show the latest work to him. He would smile, read a few lines and shake his head. Then he would smile that generous smile he had and try to reassure us that our service was acceptable.

Having been responsible for the original edition, he couldn’t understand what they had done with his Guru Maharaja’s masterwork.

He would consult Shridhar Maharaja and they would laugh and go on in rapid-fire Bengali. Shridhar Maharaja would make an observation and they would become grave. Shridhar Maharaja would repeat Gaura Hari bol, Gaura hari bol, again and again. Then they would look at each other and laugh some more at some strange intangible irony in a commentary by Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakura.

Shridhar Maharaja’s discourse followed a formal style: State principles, develop an argument, give examples, make a point. Tell an anecdote illustrating the point. Make four or five points showing different sides of the argument, each with aphorisms, details, and anecdotes. Gather the points together and make a conclusion, circling back to your first principles.

Listen to his recorded lectures and you will see his style at work. His argument is clear, concise, and beautiful, his anecdotes illustrative and to the point. Even interrupted by train whistles, construction workers, petitions from devotees and friends, daily Math business, Shridhar Maharaja would carefully elaborate a very coherent argument over a two hour period. Each lecture may be edited into an essay, with many gems of wisdom, deep observation, spiritual experience and Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta.

I believe I was somehow blessed by some divine power to take part in the unraveling of Shridhara Maharaja’s message.

It was a strange combination of good fortune and necessity. No one else presented himself at the time and I was desperate to repay Shridhar Maharaja for his kindness and help. Somehow things came together and I found myself involved with Bhakti Sudhir Goswami and all the members of the team which formed around Guardian of Devotion Press.

It was an intense educative experience. I learned computer science, typesetting, page layout, graphic design, copy editing, transcribing, compiling and editing taped transcripts, making editorial decisions, and cooperating with a creative team of artists, spiritual teachers, and intensely humble devotees willing to surrender everything to keep the message alive.

The probe is reaching my heart. I can feel a kind of heat. The doctors turn off the Mexican Heavy metal music they’ve been grooving along to. They’ve become serious. Silent. I can hear them shouting numbers back and forth. One of them works the probe, looking at a large computer monitor. The other has a huge flat-screen Macintosh monitor. It’s like two men parking a truck. The driver is at the wheel, his helper waving him in. I think they’re arriving at the moment of truth. Either they will plant the stent and I will have double my present circulation, or it’s all for nought. The arteries are gone, fossilized and necrotic and it’s time for me to wrap up my affairs on this earth planet.

Nothing clarifies the mind like a death sentence.

Ego, No Ego, Surrender. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.

Surrender.

Maybe it’s an ego trip, but somehow I feel that I have been prepared for writing, that my mission is to broadcast the message of surrender. All my life I have read avidly. My years at Guardian of Devotion Press were productive years. We worked prolifically. And now, in my final years I have been sought out by the devotees again and pushed into writing. What other purpose could I have. I have no money. I have no influence. I do not come from a high family. But I have some talent for expression with words. What else can I offer?

So, in some strange way, I feel I have been prepared by a divine hand. If I am to pray to God to preserve my life, what can I offer in return? Shridhar Maharaja used to give the example of Professor Nixon, a World War I flyer. As his plane went down in flames, Nixon promised God to dedicate his life, if only he survived. He did survive and went on to become Śrī Krishna Prema Swami. He wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the first Westerners to do so.

The doctors are going back and forth now, arguing in Spanish about something. I think they’re ready to open the artery. They’re excited. Animated. Will some divine force guide the surgeon’s hand and let me live? Or is it all over.

We’re supposed to accept what is favorable for divine love and reject what is unfavorable. Is it favorable to go on living? Or shall I surrender to the dark currents and go under, surrendering to whatever fate divinity has ordained for my soul? People are praying for me. Will their prayers go for naught? Can supernatural prayer make the computer monitor a bit brighter? Can it make the surgeon’s reflexes sharper, his mind more clear? Can some divine power inspire my team of cardiologists to work without tiring another five minutes, before deciding to quit and break for lunch?

I feel a burst of warmth. Something is said, not quite in celebration. These are men of science. No sense of humor. But the atmosphere has changed subtly. I can feel the relief in the operating room. They have stopped concentrating. They are recording the moment and preparing to withdraw the probe. My heart is warmer.

They start patching me up. There’s a certain amount of blood involved. They’re giving me instructions, putting some kind of pressure bracelet on my arm. The pressure hurts, but I’m happy. I think it was a success.

“Dolan.”

“hmmm?”

“Señor Dolan.”

“Yes?”

“The result. We could place 2 stents. Your arteries are open. You need to take care of your arm. Don’t move for 4 hours. Don’t go up stairs for 4 weeks. You’ll be OK. You can talk to the Doctor later. It was a success.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “There is a God.” I think. “Thank you Krishna.” Gaura hari bol.