Swans

After the passing away of Shridhar Maharaja...

His most intimate disciple, Bhakti Sundar Govinda Maharaja succeeded him. Govinda Maharaja was a swan-like soul. I've never met anyone like him. He was always joyful and free from envy. He had guided Shridhar Maharaja's mission for years  but came out of the shadow of his guru when he was needed. Unfortunately, I was unable to take much of his association in the later years. After the passing away of Shridhar Maharaja,  We were heartbroken It was hard for me to carry on with the same enthusiasm. I traveled around the world and preached in Australia, Germany, South America, the United States, but my heart just wasn't into it any more. I went on a preaching tour of Costa Rica only to discover an abandoned mission. With no where to go I ended up broke and disgusted with everything. I took a long hiatus from the mission.  I finally settled in Mexico and decided to carry on life independently. When I visited Chiang Mai last year, I found that Govinda Maharaja had passed on. My old friend and mentor was no longer with us. I regret his passing. I regret not having the chance to serve him as well as some of you.

It’s hard for me to believe he isn’t physically present in India, waiting for us to visit, with his broad smile, his robust figure and his swan-like personality.

Triumvirate: Shridhar Maharaja, Govinda Maharaja, Bhaktivedanta Swami

It’s difficult to speak of him properly. Words are inadequate. I would need a symphony orchestra of silver-throated Vaishnava singers, a chorus of expert mridanga players, a choir of Gandharvas, a ballet of Apsaras to celebrate his life in dance and song and mourn his life with the saddest Bengali bhajans. Bhakti-shastri, Vidya-ranjana, Vidyasundara, our Param-guru Shridhar Dev Goswami lauded Govinda Maharaja with titles, but none suffices.

In a moment of spiritual passion, I went to India to find a real guru. Govinda Maharaja saved me, redeemed my life and helped me to take shelter of Shridhar Maharaja.

But in a sense, while I call myself a follower of Shridhar Maharaja or his disciple, really Govinda Maharaja was his one true disciple. Everyone who came to Shridhar Maharaja after Govinda Maharaja is really a follower of Govinda Maharaja. But I always felt he was my true friend.

Govinda Maharaja was born in a Vaishnava family on December 17th, 1929. We adjust his appearance day according to the lunar cycles so it falls on the Dvitiya day of the month of Narayana. When I was reading about him for the talk I was astonished that we have the same birthday according to the solar calendar. I was also born on December 17th, but that’s all I have in common with Govinda Maharaja.

He joined the mission at an early age. He met some Gaudiya Math brahmacharies who were surprised by his mridanga playing. They helped him cross the Ganges to the ashram of Shridhar Maharaja. The brahmacharis who brought this new initiate were amazed when a week later, Shridhar Maharaja announced that this boy would be his successor.

He was a natural Vaishnava. Shridhar Maharaja once commented, “In many ways he is more qualified than I am.” Trained in the scriptures he became very learned and could compose beautiful Sanskrit poetry spontaneously. But Govinda Maharaja was never presumptuous about his learning. He didn’t care for defeating people in debate. He was a swan-like soul.

In Sanskrit we use the word Paramahamsa. It means a swan-like soul or personality. A swan is the emblem of grace. Govinda Maharaj taught through his example what it means to be a Vaishnava. He was never envious, never entered into an argument just to grind somebody down or hurt them. Look at the photos you see of Govinda Maharaja. He is always smiling, joyous, ecstatic, and charming.

Probably the greatest exponent of Vedic culture and Krishna consciousness in the 20th century was A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, my harinam guru. He sacrificed his life to preach Krishna Consciousness in the west, touring the world again and again, translating the core scriptures from Sanskrit and givine them to the West. Most of you know of his contribution. But few people realize that Bhaktivedanta Swami spent much of his free time training Govinda Maharaja Sanskrit and the meaning of Bhagavad-Gita, when Prabhupada was Abhay Charan De and ran a pharmacy at Sita Kanta Bannerjee lane in Calcutta during the 1940s.

The 3 Greatest Vaishnavas together

Govinda Maharaja at microphone with Shridhara Maharaja listens and Bhaktivedana Swami

Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, founder of the Gaudiya Math once commented about Shridhar Maharaja, “Now I am confident that there is one man who can understand my argument and represent my line after I am gone.” Bhaktivedanta Swami turned out to be the divinely inspired Vaishnava who would carry the message to the West. But after both of these stalwart acharyas left his material plane and entered Vrindadavan, there was one highly qualified Vaishnava who would continue the message and mission into the 21st century and this was Govinda Maharaja.

“In many ways he is more qualified than I am,” said Shridhar Maharaja. He accepted Govinda Maharaja immediately after meeting him and annointed him as his successor precisely because he manifest the qualities of a great Vaishnava even at an early age.

I cannot list all of Govinda Maharaja’s accomplishments here. Those of you who are his disciples know this better than I do. But beyond his achievements as a preacher or the head of a mission, what strikes everyone is that here you have a Vaishava who was completely nonenvious.

This is an amazing human quality. I read the transcript of his audio-will on the internet the other day. When the devotees asked him, “what about the four rules of Prabhupada: no meat-eating, no illicit sex, no gambling, no drugs...” Govinda Maharaja replied that this was all right, but more important was “No Vaishnava aparadha.” Don’t give offense to other Vaishnavas. This is the most important. Govinda Maharaja was a personal example of this. Many members of other Vaishnava organizations have problems getting along with one another. “It’s easier to be a saint than to live with one,” someone once said.

But Govinda Maharaja was loved by all: Gaudiya Math, Iskcon, even dangerous members of the opposition: all respected and loved him. His personality was emblematic of Vaishnavism. He was peaceful, humble, kind, grave, deliberate, intelligent, and completely dedicated. He didn’t use his position for name or fame or money, sex, power, the traps that lesser humans fall into. He was generous, joyful and simple, charmed with the favorable waves that Krishna sent him.

Unfortunately that great and humble soul is no longer physically with us.

But he left behind a family. He left us a family of friends, followers, and well-wishers. His true followers do not practice discrimination or sectarianism.

Govinda Maharaja with Aurora

nagar kirtan

That's me on the left of  Govinda Maharaja, Shridhar Maharaja

 We are the family of Govinda Maharaja.

We are his godbrothers, disciples, and friends. This is a divine family. We do not say, “leave your family and come with us,” we say, “Be a part of our family and you will always have a home.” This is the home built by Govinda Maharaja, the devotional family of the guru-varga. We will always remember the great soul who invited us into his family and we invite you to participate with us in the wonder of spiritual discovery and divine love. 

Gurus

 The Search for Shri Krishna,   has since been translated into several languages, including Spanish, German, French, Hungarian, and Russian and is still in print today. The Search for Sri Krishna epub edition. 

The next book we  published at  Guardian of Devotion Press was called 

Sri Guru and His Grace

Sri Guru and His Grace epub edition.

Sri Guru and His Grace explores the idea of Guru. What is a real Guru? What is the relative and absolute position of Guru? How to avoid being cheated?

As a kid growing up in the 60s I was exposed to different gurus.

My first guru was this man, Father Thaddeus Yang.

My first guru was a Benedictine monk, Father Yang. He was the 2nd in command at Valyermo, an Abbey in the Mohave Desert.  Valyermo was founded in China in 1929 by the Abbey of Sint Andries Zevenkerken in Brugge, Belgium. The monks prayed, taught, and worked in China until they were expelled by the communists in 1952. In 1955 the community relocated at Valyermo in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. Since that time the monks have sought to live out St. Benedict's precept to "prefer nothing to the love of Christ" in the High Desert of Southern California. 

http://www.valyermo.com/

Father Yang with Chinese Calligraphy in background.

Father Yang was a kindly man took shelter of the Benedictine friars during the invasion of Nanking, which was  ravaged and burned by the Japanese during the Second World War.  His deep oriental insight tempered his interpretations of the Christian tradition for me, when I was a child. He had a great sense of humor and dedicated himself to wood sculptures. He could be found in the desert, burning huge pieces of driftwood with a blow-torch, a camel cigarette hanging from his mouth. I asked him, "How could the whole human race have descended from Adam and Eve?" To which he responded, "It never says there is only one Adam and one Eve." I found great peace there in the desert in the winter of 1965. It was my first experience with monastic life. Father Yang was a compassionate man who helped my family when we were going through some tough times.

In the 1960s there were a lot of gurus. Television had just been invented. After the second world war, the atom bomb and the space race had changed the old paradigms. The Beatles blew everyone's minds. I wasn't happy in the Catholic Church and felt I could go deeper.

Timothy Leary told everyone to "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out."Timothy Leary Speaks 

Another famous guru was Alan Watts.  I listened to his lectures at UCLA. 

Alan Watts

Alan Watts was a Christian Theologian who had taken up Zen Buddhism. He made a big sensation with his lectures. He was a deep, erudite and thoughtful man, who kept people spell-bound with his talks. Later syndicated by Pacifica Radio, his voice was a fascinating alternative to the establishment way of thinking. Alan Watts Speaks 

While outlandish and flamboyant, both Leary and Watts were still quite within the mainstream. Leary was a Doctor of Psychology at Harvard University, and Watts was an episcopal priest for 6 years before leaving the church. Alan Watts website

While these men were groundbreaking in promoting new ways of viewing reality, their points of view were distorted. Leary's  by wide use of marijuana, mescaline, LSD, Watts was a notorious alcoholic who also experimented with mescaline and LSD. Their ideas remain controversial. Leary was interested in using chemistry to open the doors of perception. Watts took his ideas further with the hope of uniting psychedelic drug use with Eastern Philosophy. Still, after all they were mainstream white men raging against the establishment machine. People wanted to go to original sources.

The Beatles were the ones who really put Gurus on the map back in the 1960s, by introducing this man, the  Maharishi. In the end, the Beatles rejected his teachings when the Maharishi tried to seduce Mia Farrow, a Hollywood actress married to Frank Sinatra.

Maharishi with Mia Farrow

They wrote the song, "Fool on the Hill" especially for the Maharishi.

In the 70s, The Maharishi wold be succeeded by a number of so-called gurus from the East:

 There was Baba Muktananda, of "Siddha-ayoga." http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm,  I was approached by friends to attend his lectures in Los Angeles, but a "weekend intensive" yoga session cost 800 $ dollars at the time. That was a lot of money back then. I felt that Baba Muktananda's Siddha-Yoga was rich man's yoga. Maybe it worked for Hollywood. 

Amid all these so-called gurus was one who stood apart from the rest: A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. 

Bhaktivedanta Swami (Prabhupada) in Thompkins Square Park, 1965

He didn't ask for money. All he wanted was that you read his books and understood the ancient philosophy of India from the Upanishads. His message was straight-forward. No drugs, no intoxication, no meat-eating. Clean yourself up. You can find inner truth. Use the mantra as a path to self-discovery. My mother had gone to Transcendental Meditation. She paid 35$ to be initiated as a disciple of the Maharishi and receive her official meditation mantra. At the time, I thought that was cheating. I liked the idea that spiritual truth should be free. 

I read the Bhagavad-gita and felt inspired. Later I would join his disciples in Los Angeles. We worked hard to promote his books. He lived humbly, taught tirelessly. He spent his time translating the Sanskrit Bhagavat Purana, writing thousands of letters to his followers around the world, and promoting the construction of temples in India to glorify Krishna.

He was a man of the utmost integrity. Unlike the false gurus who promoted drugs and sex openly or secretly, he was dedicated to his mission.

Unfortunately, his passing left a void, a vacuum. Those who tried to fill the void lacked his realization, his charm, his integrity, and his dedication. We went to Shridhar Maharaja for guidance.

How to recognize a real guru?

 Here's an excerpt from the Introduction to this powerful book by Bhakti Rakshak Shridhar Dev Goswami. His message is as timeless today as when it was first spoken:

To err is human. To err is inevitable for all, being not perfect. Still, no one wants to remain imperfect. There is an element within all that is animate that tends towards perfection. If it were not so, we would feel no want at all. Our tendency towards perfection is certainly very weak and limited; otherwise we could attain the goal at once. Our limited capacity and tendency for perfection makes room for the guide or guru. 

The imperfect is not so if it is not in need of help, and that also from beyond itself. The perfect is not perfect if  He cannot assert Himself or help others, and that too, of His own accord. So the guidance to perfection or Absolute Truth is necessarily a function of the absolute Himself, and the divine agent through whom this function manifests is Sri Guru or the divine guide. For a seeker of the Absolute Truth, submission to the guru is unavoidable. 

A class of thinkers believes, however, that when scientific research is possible, why cannot higher spiritual knowledge also be evolved from within? Such people are ignorant of the most essential nature of absolute Knowledge, that He alone is the Absolute Subject and all else including ourselves constitutionally stand only as an object to His omniscient vision. It is impossible for the eye to see the mind; it can have some connection with the mind only when the latter cares to mind it. In a similar way, our connection with absolute knowledge depends mainly on His sweet will. We must solely depend on His agent, or the spiritual master, through whom He likes to distribute Himself. 

Our human society with its finest culture forms but an infinitesimal part of the dynamic absolute. How, except by the direct and positive method of revelation, dare we hope to comprehend or evolve any conception of the supernatural knowledge of the unconditioned infinite? All intellectual giants prove themselves but pygmies before the absolute omniscient omnipotence who reserves the right to give Himself away through His own agents alone. 

To our best knowledge and sincerity, however, we should see not to submit to a false agent. Here of course, we can't help ourselves very much; because in our present state we are mainly guided by our previous samskara or acquired nature. "Birds of the same feather flock together." Yet, although we are generally overpowered by habit, there is still the possibility of free choice to a certain extent, specially in the human species, otherwise correction becomes impossible, and punishment mere vengeance. Reality can assert itself. Light does not require darkness for its positive proof. 

The sun by itself can establish its supremacy over all other lights. Before an open and unbiased eye, the sad guru (real guide) shines above all professors of phenomenon. Sri Guru manifests himself mainly in a twofold way - as the director from within and the preceptor from without. Both functions of the absolute help an individual soul - a disciple - to reach the absolute goal. In our fallen state we cannot catch the proper direction of the inner guide, so the merciful manifestation of the preceptor without is our sole help and hope. But at the same time it is only by the grace of the guru within that we can recognize the real preceptor without and submit to his holy feet.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/237aigqkahyan2l/Sri_Guru_and_His_Grace.epub?dl=0

Swallowed by Trees.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

These trees and vines have been at work for hundreds of years stangling and swallowing ancient Cambodian temples.

What is made by man is swallowed by nature.

Humble jungle trees recapture the great stone monuments created by powerful kings in Angkor.

Eerie trees at Angkor Thom

What will happen to our own monuments?

Abandoned Shopping Mall in Ohio

Detroit Shopping Mall

Will they too be ravaged by time and reclaimed by nature?

What will become of the cathedrals of Capitalism years hence? Will they be overthrown by weeds and strangler vines, just as the temples of Angkor?

Check out the ruins of Detroit.