Jagat

Sometimes I wonder. For instance, when McVeigh bombed Oklahoma, BB and his acolytes were quick to remind us of Waco. So, they have some insight into cause and effect when it comes to terrorist acts. Obviously, BB has some understanding of "anger." Perhaps we should better call it frustration. Terrorism is about the powerless making a statement. That is why someone who thinks abortion is unjust and sees no legal means to achieve his end, believes that his only recourse is violence. The same applies to Timothy McVeigh and to Muslim terrorists. Of course, such actions cannot be permitted, but repression on its own is not a long-term measure that can work. Admittedly, Islam is a tough nut and seems more resistent to ordinary psychology than others. But then, I sometimes feel the same applies to Bhuta Bhavana or Puru Das. The real place to begin, of course, is Israel. Of course, American military presence in Saudi Arabia seems to be a bigger issue than I was aware of before. I saw one Islamic activist from London saying, Hey in 50 years or so, there'll be no more oil. And the royal family in Saudi Arabia has done nothing to prepare for that. At the same time, America will lose its interest in the region. The fundamentalists are waiting for this moment. They are very patient. Anyway, Leyh, thanks for reminding us that there is a Krishna conscious viewpoint that we should be trying to find. Your servant, Jagat

Invocatory prayer: May Krishna provide wisdom to all of us, especially our leaders. May our justifiable anger not blind us and prevent us from finding real solutions to the terrible problems that the entire world faces. It is difficult to say anything about this terrible event that will not be misconstrued by the Manichaens, who see God on the side of America and the Evil One on the side of Islam. Thus 5,000 civilian Americans dead is terrorism, whereas hundreds of thousands of dead Muslim civilians are merely "collateral damage." George Bernard Shaw said, "Every complex problem has a simple solution. But it is the wrong one." The "war on terrorism" will be like the war on drugs. No end. No success. Why do so many Americans resist looking for root causes? Will waging war on Afghanistan accomplish anything? They don't need to be bombed into the stone age, they're already there. Will waging war against any part of the Islamic world accomplish anything other than exacerbating the problem? Ben Laden or "Islamic terrorism" is a symptom, not a cause. Was the Gulf War a "measured response"? Was it successful? Did it perhaps have something to do with what happened last week? By the way, maybe we have the wrong demon: http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr010919_1_n.shtml By the way, bombing a skyscraper or an abortion clinic is different only in degree. The basic principle is the same. The 5,000-0 score only shows that Bhuta Bhavana is not as angry about his principles as our Muslim terrorist friends. My dandavats to all. Jagat

Well it would appear that you are a bhakta by nature. Maybe the mother goddess is your desired object, ishta. But yes, the mantras have different meanings, so it might still be good to explore. After all, devotion to the mother doesn't necessarily exclude devotion to the father.

Dear Chris, You might want to try purchasing some records of the chanting (singing) of Hare Krishna, especially by Srila Prabhupada. Then try chanting yourself. You can either sing the Hare Krishna maha mantra or you can meditate by repeating the mantra silently. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Then see what happens.

I don't think that one can equate the injuction to write the Holy Names on the body with gopi chandan and wearing an image of the Deity. About painting the Holy Names on the body. This is to be done after passing stools and such and then bathing, so the body is pure. Since one supposedly leads a regulated life, one does not go into the toilet again. No Vaishnava in his right mind would go into the toilet with a bead bag or Harinam chadar, nor would he or she place them on the floor, and that is the standard we should follow. Jagat

<h3>Lord Jagannath's image on saree irks Hindus</h3> Imran Khan in Bhubaneswar The temple administrator of the world famous Jagannath temple, H S Samantray, has threatened to take legal action against a Calcutta based company for using the images of Lord Jagannath on sarees. The move comes after right-wing Hindu outfits associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had threatened action against the manufacturer. The use of the image of Lord Jagannath and other two deities on sarees has sparked resentment among hundreds of priests of the Puri Temple. Samantray has asked the company to withdraw the saree brand immediately or face legal action. "We will not take it, the company will have to face the legal consequences if it failed to withdraw the sarees from the market all over the country," he said. The company had launched Swatika Butia brand of sarees with images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, particularly lord Jagannath, the main deity of the Puri temple. Samantray told rediff.com, "Lord Jagannath, the most revered deity and a symbol of Hindu faith, has been projected in a saree in a derogatory manner. This is shocking," he added. Earlier, several Hindu organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Hindu Jagran Sammukhya had protested against the company for misusing the image of Hindu Gods. http://rediff.com/news/2001/sep/03jag.htm

enaM is accusative of "this". It's an alternative form of etaM, not a separate pronoun. kopi is ko'pi kaH api in sandhi. It means "someone." It is like kazcana. See Bhagavata 10.14.2, 10.14.29-30 (a clearer example).

When Prabhupada came to America, he was making a conscious choice because he recognized that white Westerners held the strings of world power. He recognized that non-Caucasian races everywhere were in the thrall of white cultural and economic dominance. So he very wisely decided to pierce the stronghold, knowing that if Americans and to a lesser extent Europeans took to Krishna consciousness that it would spread throughout the world. This first became true in India, where he returned in 1968 with his first American disciples. But the movement has since then been primarily dominated by Americans. All the eleven acharyas appointed by Prabhupada were Americans, which had Indians like Gopal Krishna and Svarupa Damodar upset in the beginning. They figured Indians would never accept Americans as spiritual gurus. But everywhere else? Look at Eastern Europe. Do you think the cult of Americanism had nothing to do with the spreading of Krishna consciousness in Russia or Hungary? The irony is, of course, that Western standards are high, even for a spiritual movement. People are educated and ask lots of questions. Western societies live by the rule of law and we expect our leaders to be what they claim to be. There are probably fewer practitioners of Krishna conscious in the U.S. and western Europe right now than there are in other parts of the world -- like South America or the old USSR, or even some Southeast Asian countries. But for he most part, they are still the leaders. One may wonder if racism has ever been a factor in all this. I would tend to say that devotees are human beings like everyone else and therefore have racist tendencies. Prabhupada thought highly of his American disciples and they also thought highly of themselves

[110] Then Snigdhakantha said, laughing aloud, Please describe how Vasudeva came to Vraja with the son of our king. [111] Madhukantha continued, [v34] The shackles loosened from Vasudeva’s feet, all the people fell asleep, the bars that held the doors were torn apart, the snake god Sesha became an umbrella over his head, and the Yamuna like an irrigation channel in an open field, and Gokula was free from any obstacle right up to the home of the cowherd king, and the son of Shura turned into Krishna’s carrier. So tell me, what is all that and to whom? [112] Snigdhakantha answered, All that is nothing but manifestation of the king of the cowherds’ good fortune. [113] At this point in the recital, [v35] When the two brothers, whose conversation was like the spreading of a great magical net, made all these pastimes of Hari seem to pass before their very eyes, the people of Vraja felt, moment by moment, the emotional symptoms of steamy tears, immobility, and fainting. How is it possible for us to describe them all? [114] Then Snigdhakantha again asked his brother to continue. [115] Madhukantha responded, his moist eyes communicating his great pleasure: [116] Then, Vasudeva placed the child beside Yashoda as carefully as if he were placing a jewel. Then he left, taking with him Maya, who retracted the bewilderment which had caused everyone to nod off for no reason. After he had gone, the wife of the king of Vraja saw the child who had been born to her, before her very eyes. This is stated in the Vishnu Purana (5.3.22) “Awakening, Yashoda saw that a son the color of a blue lotus had been born to her. This made her extremely joyful.” [117] Now we shall describe the same scene: [v36] Seeing the boy, his wondrous body like a divine sapphire, his moon-face more beautiful than the moon, his eyes like transcendental lotuses, his hands and feet more lovely than the new twigs and shoots of the heavenly trees, moving his hand and feet slightly, astounding the universe with his soft and sweet crying, the queen of the cowherds thought that this her child was the most wonderful thing in all creation. [v37] The beloved wife of the King of Vraja sat, contemplating Krishna and thinking, “This child is the empire of all things darkly radiant, the treasure-house of all precious objects, the good fortune of all that is lovely, the ultimate perfection in every part of his body.” The new baby started to cry, seemingly to answer, “Om, om -- Quite so, quite so!” [v38] As she gazed at her son who had just been born, Yashoda could not even call for her friends to come, let alone do anything else. Her eyes and throat were choked with tears and her body stunned into stillness, driving her to distraction, for she was anxious to caress him. Furthermore, [v39] Once Maya had left, the people of Vraja again regained consciousness. And when was that? When the Supreme Person took birth amongst them. [v40] Even though they did not see him right away, he brightened their minds just like the cool-rayed moon makes night lilies bloom from afar. [v41] For the child did not just appear on the bed of his mother, he also appeared like a reflection in the pure minds of all the affectionate gopis. [v42] When he thus appeared to them, even though some distance away, they came to him quickly like peacocks at the coming of a cloud. [v43] As Rohini and the other women of Vraja surrounded the little boy, it appeared as if the full moon was rising surrounded by chakori birds. [v44] Yashoda was looking at her child with smiling eyes, despite her stupor and they, looking for a way to counteract it, began to look at the child from every side. [v45] But even as the women looked on the black child with their minds as well as their eyes they were increasingly puzzled by him - and that is fitting, for when something so rare is finally attained through the workings of fate, it refuses at first to freely grant comprehension of itself. Their confusion was shown in the following way: [v46] “Is this a garland of fresh blue lotuses? or is it a great sapphire, the jewel of Indra? Or is this unequalled object lapis lazuli, this thing which cannot be known? We see the body of what is just a little boy, and yet it arrests all the activities of our senses and is the cynosure of our eyes.” [118] Furthermore, as they considered the newly born infant, they felt that his body had been constructed out of the essence of branches of a tamal tree mixed with musk, that he had then been massaged with the unguents of a loveliness from which all other beauty derives, soaped by the glow of his own body, washed by the nectarean glow emanating from his own face, anointed with sandalwood ground into pulp with the camphor of his mother’s gaze, and decorated by his own form covered with natural auspiciousness. Then the women bustled forward and looked more closely at the boy. They now saw his soft body to be like the paste made of musk essence extracted from a deer with a body of tamal leaves, that the locks of hair over his moonlike face were like darkness itself ground into powder by his own hand. The child was looking at them, clenching his hands as if to capture everyone’s mind, while moving his hands and feet like waves of aguru in the Yamuna River. [119] Thus looking at him, [v47] All the women murmured in delight; they remembered no other duty. Only one of them, who remained clearheaded quickly took him in her trembling hands and gazed at him. [120] She quickly confirmed the child’s sex and told them all it was a boy. Their reaction was as follows – [v48] “Oh, let me hold him to my head, I would like to touch him with my eyes forever. Let me embrace him tightly to my breast, I would like to hold him within my heart.” Overcoming all these competing desires, the anxiety of these beautiful-eyed women to look at him brought their sense of sight alone into play. Meanwhile, [v49] Oh, though her son was in Yashoda’s eyes continuously, intoxicating her with joy, she found no satisfaction. The great pleasure she felt was made manifest in the rainfall of nectar that fell, both from her breasts and from her eyes. [121] Then, someone raised the question of how to carry out the first bathing rites and so on should be carried out, the women’s attention was fixed on what had to be done. [v50] On Rohini’s orders, a certain older Brahmin woman, superior because her husband was alive and she had sons, went off in great joy to tell Nanda what had taken place. She rushed out of the house, her face beaming, her white hair and clothes streaming behind her, like a white effulgence. She was the incarnation of all their smiles. [122] When the account had been completed up to this point, all the members of the assembly were overwhelmed by the same ecstatic symptoms they had heard being described. The tow brothers stood silently before them with their hands folded for a moment. Then Madhukantha spoke, [v51] Oh King of Vraja, this son of yours is the treasure of this assembly. He brings every kind of joy to all people from the moment of his birth. [123] Then the king called the two brothers to his side. When they had come he placed his lotus-like hand on their heads and covered them with his own ornaments. He also made their accompanists the objects of his great generosity. Then he said, “Come to eat at my house today.” To everyone else he said, “You must all come again like this every morning.” [124] Krishna, the prince of Vraja, then took permission from his father to go out to watch over the cows, reminding his mother to send a lunch to be eaten in the woods, and gave leave to the two sons of the bard to accompany him. When he had left the assembly, all the others returned to their respective homes. Here ends the third chapter of Gopala-purva-campu, “Krishna’s glorious birth, which fulfilled the desires of the residents of Vraja." <font color=#f7f7f7><small> [This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 09-01-2001).]

Thanks for that. There is some useful information here.

<font color=#669999>Still a couple of paragraphs need work here, but I am going away for the weekend. It gets a bit technical. To really understand it, you have to carefully read the Krishna Sandarbha as well.</font><hr> [95] There was something else very special about Krishna's birth: [v33] Maya, having then and there taken the form of a little girl, because she always renders service to Krishna purely for the sake of receiving his mercy, took birth from the womb of mother Yashoda, after first making him who transcends all things, her elder brother. [96] Snigdhakantha thought, This statement is supported by scriptural evidence: “Vishnu’s younger sister was seen carrying weapons in her eight great arms” (BhP 10.4.9). In various other verses like “The great-minded Nanda was overjoyed at the birth of his son...” (10.5.1), in which the word Atmaja is used explicitly indicate that Krishna is the physical son of Nanda. Even so, I will bring this out in to the open and ask these questions so that everyone’s doubts can be cleared up. [97] So thinking, he asked aloud, Noble sir, tell me why then is this person known as the son of Vasudeva and Devaki? [98] Madhukantha, hearing such words from his brother became silent for a moment and though to himself as follows, The sage of the gods, Narada, very forcefully ordered us, “If you should ever at any time find yourselves travelling to Vraja to give a performance, then you must conceal Lord Krishna’s superlative powers because that land is so full of love for Krishna.” Therefore, at this time I shall only speak of the conclusions made by Garga, the most famous of sages. These people already know these things and so it will not be a surprise to them. [99] Aloud he said, I am about to reveal some of the truths about this prince of Vraja, for which offense I hope that he at least will forgive me. The fact is that this Krishna has one particular achievement that stands out above all the rest. He resides in the hearts of those whose every activity is dominated by love for him. The loving behavior of those who are thus characterized by affection for him, even if it should be performed out of his sight, has the effect of printing him in the hearts of such people. But he only manifests himself externally in his true form because he is controlled by the need to bring to realization the images of him that his affectionate devotees have, and for no other reason. The seed of his birth as a son is affection for him in the parental mode and it is not as though it were for another reason, as it would be for other persons. And though he takes birth in some place as a son, the images accumulated out of the affection arising out of other, different relations with him also cause him to appear accordingly in other appropriate forms. [100] Since this is the way things are, Krishna becomes incarnate in every age amongst the king and other residents of Vraja up to and including the servants, because they are uniquely characterized by love of the parental and other varieties, all of which are fully awakened and pure [in them]. He tries to repay the debt which arises from the accumulation of love which they have for him, and then concluding that the accumulation of interest is impossible to repay, comes and stays with them like a son (or some other relation) as though he were a slave indentured to a usurer. No others would have such an opportunity for even a moment. [101] This idea was expressed by Lord Brahma thus: “Oh Lord, it puzzles me to think what you will give to these residents of Vraja as a reward...” (10.14.35). It was also indicated by Narayan when he said to Nanda and his wife, “That delicate child who is as beautiful as the blue atasi flower...” (above, n64). Furthermore, Garga Muni also said (BhP 10.8.19), “Therefore, Nanda, in his qualities this son of yours will be equal to Narayan, and so be very careful and protect him with your wealth, influence and your powers.” On the basis of this statement, we conjecture the following: the King of Vraja whose entire sense of personal purpose in life is entirely wrapped around having a son like this one, worships the great Lord Narayan for that purpose. It is revealed in scripture that this Narayan has a personal potency named Yogamaya who is capable of performing even miraculous feats. Given by Narayan, she has been adopted by Krishna. And although she is hardly noticed by Nanda’s son because his mind is distracted by the affections of his friends and relatives, nevertheless, she follows him constantly and unbeknownst to either him or anyone else, aids him in his amusements. Moreover, just as Yogamaya acts in this way, so too do Narayan’s other potencies follow her example. Even though this is the case, Garga said [to Nanda], “Protect this boy to whom your Lord has given his own energies with your own wealth and other powers.” As a result, Garga’s words (10.8.15), “This son of yours has many different names and forms”, are an overstatement. Whatever wishes, momentary or permanent, that Krishna may have due to his fixation on the flavours of the love that his loving devotees have for him, are immediately fulfilled forthwith. Therefore, this form of King Nanda’s son always remains with two arms and appears, apparently indiscriminately, either nearby or far away, both singly and sometimes in numerous manifestations according to the form of their mood, and then disappears, for he approves whatever will give pleasure each affectionate devotee according to his or her individual nature. [102] So, we can conclude that the four-armed form that appears within Vasudeva and Devaki as the object of their meditation is the very same form that materializes externally for them, according to the principle that one can deduce the cause from the result. And by this very same principle, we can conclude that the king and queen of Vraja had visions of Krishna in his two-armed form. Now let us consider the words of the great ascetic Garga, who said, “This son of yours was born to Vasudeva at some time previously” (10.8.14). When Devaki became afraid of what cruel Kamsa might do, she desired that Krishna manifest a two-armed form and conceal the four-armed form in which he had first appeared to her. So Krishna, in the two-armed form that had previously been present in Yashoda along with Maya, came there and materialized beside Devaki, assimilating the four-armed form. While remaining present within Yashoda’s womb in the form of a little baby girl, in another formless form, Maya acted as Krishna’s conveyor, carrying him bodily through the air just like the winds move the petals of a blue lotus without being seen. And, when she boldly seized Krishna, she also enchanted Mother Yashoda and put her in a drowsy state. [103] Next, in her form within Yashoda’s womb, she gave her mother the illusion that she had given birth, and then appeared outside Yashoda as a baby girl lying down on the birth cot. In other words, she did what she had done when transferring Sankarshan from Devaki’s womb into that of Rohini. [104] Snigdhakantha then thought the following: Madhukantha has spoken the truth here, for the Lord said to Maya (10.2.9), “So I shall appear with my fractional portion” and Brahma similarly said to the gods (10.1.25), “Vishnu’s Maya has also been ordered by the Lord to take birth with his portion for a particular purpose.” By the words “with my fractional portion,” the Lord was also referring to his four-armed form. By the words “for a particular purpose” and “to take birth his portion,” Brahma meant that Yogamaya would accompany Krishna’s two-armed form in order to bewilder his parents and others. This is the same way in which this has all been explained elsewhere by the expert knowers of the Srimad Bhagavatam, particularly in their commentaries on 10.38.32, where it said “Balaram and Keshava descended for the sake of the universe along with their own portions.” “Their own portions” is said to mean “in different forms.” <hr><font color=#669999>The “expert knower of the Srimad Bhagavatam” is a reference to Sridhara Swami, who in his commentary on BhP 10.38.32 glosses the word sväàçena as svävirbhäva-bhedena. In other words, aàçena is to be taken as an instrumental of accompaniment. Thus Krishna is shown not to be a portion of Narayan, but vice-versa. Cf. also KrishnaS, 90-91.</font><hr> [105] Moreover, this manifestation of Yogamaya we have described, which established Krishna’s relation to the king of Vraja, is perfectly in accordance with siddhanta. The manifestation of all of the Lord’s potencies follows the desires of those who are dear to him; it is not a haphazard occurrence. [106] All the Vrajavasis said in wonder, All this is no doubt true, but please tell us what happened after that. <hr><font color=#669999>True to character, the residents of Vraja are only marginally interested in theological discourses. </font><hr> [107] Madhukantha said, Afterwards, when all around everyone was in a Maya-induced slumber, Vasudeva, followed the instructions of Krishna, who had displayed the potency suitable to four-armed Narayan form. Out of fear of the demons, he took the two-armed child who in truth belongs to this place Vraja, and brought him here where he exchanged him for the little girl who had been born to Yashoda. Krishna never revealed the form of a newborn child to Vasudeva and Devaki in Mathura, but rather always left Vasudeva in doubt that he had been born as his son by revealing a four-armed form and speaking to him and giving him instructions. On the other hand, here in Vraja, Krishna appeared as a newborn child with two arms, who had no capacity to speak. We can thus conclude that he truly identified himself as the child born to Nanda and Yashoda. Vasudeva himself had no awareness of what had happened. [108] Snigdhakantha said, Perhaps Vasudeva was not aware of what had truly happened. Even so, he did place Krishna here, exchanging him for the girl born to Yashoda and taking her away with him. How could he have any feeling of relation with the child he had deposited here in Vraja when in fact there had been no real exchange? For even in the Agamas and other scriptures, the names given to Krishna such as Nandanandana, Nandatmaja, Nandaja, Nandatanaya, Vallavinandana and so on, are all indications that Krishna came to fulfill Nanda and Yashoda’s desires by being born to them. <hr><font color=#669999>Whether or not Vasudeva knows of all the things that have transpired in this account, it is difficult for him to think of Krishna as truly being his son, since he has no real relationship with him. This is why all the scriptures more commonly refer to Krishna in Vrindavan by the many names that indicate his relationship to Nanda Maharaj and Mother Yashoda. </font><hr> [109] Again he spoke with a laugh, saying, Krishna’s name Nandanandana is a palindrome; it can be read backwards or forwards and remain the same. This leads one to conclude that our king possesses that capability which was earlier explained and has here led to his just obtainment of Krishna. <hr><font color=#669999>A Sanskrit palindrome is read syllable by syllable – na-nda-na-nda-na.</font><hr> [110] Then Snigdhakantha said, laughing aloud, Please describe how Vasudeva came to Vraja with the son of our king.

<font color=#669999>Looks like this is a little late for Janmasthami. Better late than never.</font><hr> [84] Once again, Snigdhakantha thought to himsel: All this is true, and that is why Shukadeva, who has the virtue of always telling the truth, repeatedly expressed the opinion that Krishna was Nanda and Yashoda’s very own son. That which I previously concluded after proper reasoning has here been confirmed. Then he asked aloud, What happened next? [85] Madhukantha went on: From that day onward, all the prosperous, respectable ladies of the community noticed that the head-woman of the cowherd clan was beginning to show the signs of being pregnant and this made them all very joyful. Thus, [v22] Yashoda’s paler face, the swollen tips of her breasts, her somewhat raised belly, all these became the subject of village rumours that Yashoda was with child. Similarly, [v23] By taking up residence within the queen of Vraja, Krishna appeared within the world as well; he was just like a flame in a glass bowl lighting up everything, within and without. On the other hand, [v24] Though the wife of the King of Vraja was in full control of her appetites, and indifferent to the variety of flavors -- she was mature and grave; and yet, she began to feel desires for a little of this and a little of that. For example, [v25] Yashoda began to experience cravings: after Krishna had entered into her, other longings followed -- for ghee-filled, sugar-sweetened, camphor-scented rice pudding - all garnished with a tulasi leaf. [86] Then Yogamaya ordained that Rohini’s embryo of seven months should be miscarried and the seven-month embryo of Devaki placed within her. <hr><font color=#669999>I am a bit confused here. The embryo transferred to Rohini’s womb is that of Balaram, but is Devaki not already pregnant with Krishna, or at least Yogamaya? If Yashoda and Devaki are to give birth on the same day...</font><hr> Then after that, in the fourteenth month of her pregnancy, at a time when the opulences of all the seasons were present, prior to the month of Shravan but during the lunar asterism of Shravan, like a red cow of plenty that gives all happiness, Rohini gave birth to a beautiful white son. Because of effulgent white beauty, she was like the paurnamasi tithi bringing forth the full moon; because of the dazzling prowess innate in the child, she was like a lioness gives birth to a cub; because of the streams of pure fragrance emanating from the child, she was like a young lotus plant bringing forth a brilliant white flower; and because of the auspicious sounds that he made, she was like perfect erudition producing unlimited fame. Furthermore, [v26] Balaram’s face was a white-rayed moon, his eyes a chain of lightning bolts, his hair like a fresh cloud, his body like an autumn cloud. As effulgent as the sun was this child to whom Rohini gave birth, and all that was as it should be, for he was a child from the spiritual world. [87] The astrologers divined: “Though he will be of immense stature, this boy will always have a fair complexion. His younger brother will be great, but he too will destroy the sons of Danu. He will be a herder of cattle, but will slaughter the ass-shaped demon Dhenuka. Possessed of long arms, he will also destroy the Pralamba demon. Though he will be named Rama, he will tear apart Dvivida, a servant with whom Rama, the son of Dasaratha, was pleased.” [88] Being completely aware of the secret birth, certain Brahmins under Vasudeva’s direction clandestinely assiduously performed Balaram’s birth rituals. Nevertheless, there seems to remain one cause of distress [89] for, from his very birth until the appearance of his younger brother, Balaram appeared to be dull and unconscious. There was only one technique to counteract this and that was to place him on Yashoda’s lap, for he knew his younger brother was there. Everyone observed that when sitting there, he became completely cheerful. [90] After a few more days had passed, eight months after Krishna’s conception, it became clear that Balaram’s younger brother was about to be born. The occasion is described by poets even today: [v27] In the twenty-eighth cycle of four ages at the beginning of the age of Kali, in the period of the Vaivasvata Manu, in the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Bhadra, on the day of moon’s son, Brihaspati, at the rising of the moon at the junction called Harshana, and in the Rohini constellation, the supreme and completely perfect Moon, in his own pleasure giving joy to the wife of Nanda, rose, quickly destroying all darkness. So too, [v28] At that time, the presiding gods of the ages took all the wealth that they each possessed as gifts to worship him, and hastened to celebrate the night of Krishna’s birth. In this way [v29] Even though it was not the Satya Yuga, meditation flourished, and though not the Treta Yuga, so did the cult of sacrifice and though not the Kali Yuga, so did the singing of Hari’s names, though not spring, jasmine and other flowers bloomed, mangoes ripened without the heat of summer, beautiful white clouds appeared and rice ripened without the autumn, kunda flowers bloomed though it was not the season of the dews, lotus petals opened though it was not daytime. Though not ordained by the astrology scriptures, all the planets were in the most auspicious locations, and even without the influence of any spiritual masters, the supreme God was visible to everyone. Without the pangs of childbirth, Yashoda gave birth. [91] These things will be expounded again later. And next, [v30] In the middle of the sky stretched the glory of the numerous stars, on the horizon, above the ocean floated its friends, the rumbling clouds; thus the beauty of autumn, desired for in the midst of the rainy season, was greeted as a welcome guest on that day. Furthermore, [v31-2] On that day, the spring’s madhavi flowers blossomed alongside the jati, the ketaki bloomed by the rainy season’s ketaka, and the night lilies flowered beside the day lotuses -- this will give you some idea of what was going on. But the great authorities conclude that none of this is so wonderful, for what was truly amazing was that the treasure of the universe had also taken birth on that day. [92] As proof of this child’s wonderful nature, we can quote the thoughts of the people who came to see him on that day: [93] “Whatever we compare his bodily features to, they stand to them as a king to its subjects – his face is like a supreme sovereign among brightly smiling blue lotus flowers, his eyes are to the inner petals of a blue lotus flower decorated by the presence of tiny bees as a king; his nose is like the most beautiful of sesame flowers pinned to a blue-colored cloud; his lips rule over a congregation of China roses, bandhuka and bimba flowers, red clay and vermilion; his ears are like the most beautiful black saplings growing from a ground of collyrium; his two arms are like the great branches of a tamal tree tipped with fresh twigs; and his chest marked with Srivatsa and Sri, the daughter of the ocean, is like the emperor of the clouds embraced by a bolt of motionless lightning and a conchshell that curves to the right. [94] Furthermore, Krishna defeats all the nine treasures of the god Kuvera: with his face he is the victor over the maha-padma, great lotus, he is victorious over the padma lotus with his eyes, over the dolphin (makara) with his ears, over the kunda flower with his smile, over the conch (çaìkha) with his neck, over the tortoise (kacchapa) with the upper surfaces of his feet, over the sapphire (nila) by his bodily lustre, and finally by the combination of all these over the kharva treasure. In brief, he exceeds even Mukunda (Narayan). The accumulation of all these treasures is not impossible here in Vrindavan, even though they are normally very difficult to attain, for they took this opportunity to manifest with his birth. <hr><font color=#669999>The nine treasures of Kuvera are listed in this verse from the Härävali: padmo ‘striyäà mahäpadmaù çaìkho makara-kacchapau/ mukunda-kunda-nilaç ca kharvaç ca nidhayo nava// The kharva is enigmatic, usually being translated as a “very large number, 10,000,000,000.”</font><hr> [95] There was something else very special about his birth: <hr><font color=#669999>To be continued...</font><small><font color=f7f7f7> [This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 08-24-2001).]

<font color=#669999>Here is the relevant portion of Gopala Champu, (Purva Champu, chapter 3). It's a little rough. I need to give this a thorough edit as well. I just revised the rather poorly translated paragraph 68.</font> <hr> [63] Eager to have the recital continue, Snigdhakantha asked, What happened next? [64] Madhukantha said, After a year had gone by in the completion of this observance and their longings increased greatly, the Lord of the gods, Narayan, appeared to Nanda and Yashoda in a dream and spoke to them as follows, “You are my devotees, greatly attached to me. Why then are you wasting away in despondence? The delicate child, as beautiful as the blue atasi flower, who appeared to you in a dream, will surely appear as your son, for you sense his presence always. This child follows you in every age, and when you take birth on the earth then he also takes his birth in order to promote devotional service to himself. In this way he gives the direct fruits of your devotion to you, whose portions appear in the heavens in the form of Drona and Dhara, according to my direction. Such fruits are unavailable even to Lord Brahma, as is proved by his own statement: 'The greatest fortune is to take even the most insignificant birth in Vrindavan.' Very shortly, this pleasing desire of yours will reach fruition.” <hr><font color=#669999>The verse from Brahma-stava is 10.14.34. For more information about Drona and Dhara, see BhP x.8.48-62, x.9.20-1 and the corresponding Vaishnava-toshani commentary. According to the BhP, Brahman awarded the boon of having Krishna as an adopted child to Drona and Dhara. Sanatan objects to the inference that mere demigods could become Nanda and Yashoda. The substance of his argument is that it was not possible for Brahman to award something to which he himself was not privy, thus Droïa and Dhara’s penance could not possibly have resulted in their becoming the parents of Krishna. He concludes thus that Drona and Dhara are “portions” of Nanda and Yashoda who first appeared as demigods and then later “re-entered” the bodies of Krishna’s parents in Vrindavan. Their participation in Krishna’s lila is also limited. Cf. also Laghu Bhagavatamrita 1.488: vrajezAder aMzabUhtA ye droNAdyA avAtaran | kRSNas tAn eva vaikuNThe prAhinod iti sAmpratam || See also KrishnaS 146-51.<hr></font> [65] After the magnanimous Lord Narayan had spoken these words to Nanda and Yashoda, he disappeared. The couple then awoke and experienced the greatest delight as they recalled their vision. After discussing what they had seen, they told the good news to their friends and relatives, as if they had attained an ocean of nectar. [66] Snigdhakantha thought, Thus then, every one of my questions has received an answer. It was appropriate of Lord Narayan to state, “He will appear to you alone.” This is almost exactly what Garga intended when he said, “Previously this son of yours was at some time the son of Vasudeva” [bhP 10.8.14] and the entire creation knows that this sage’s words are never incorrect. <hr><font color=#669999>Having established that Krishna is legitimately the son of Nanda, Garga can then say that he had been, at some other time, in another incarnation, born as the son of Vasudeva.</font><hr> [67] One’s relation with God is based on love alone, as he himself has stated, “I am obtainable only by devotion” (BhP 11.14.11). The particular reason for this special mechanism of devotion is explained in the Bhagavad Gita (4.11): “I return a devotee's love for me in the very same way that they approach me, however they do so.” Therefore, the great authorities state that the particular type of love for Krishna defined as parental affection causes him to take shape as the child of the devotee who possesses such affection. [68] In this connection, it must be said about Vasudeva that he sees God in his majesty. On this account, his parental affection takes on a diluted as well as artless quality. On the other hand, the parental affection felt by the king of Vraja is well known to be constantly awake as well as entirely pure. Shukadeva also deemed that the very reason Vasudeva and Devaki conceived of Krishna as their son was the mind itself. For instance, Shukadeva stated, “Krishna, along with all his parts and portions, entered the mind of Anakadundubhi [Vasudeva]” (x.2.16) and “with his mind he held within himself the soul of all things, just like the heavens hold the moon” (x.2.18). On the other hand, for Nanda and Yashoda, holding Krishna within their minds was the only possible consequence of their natural devotion. As such, it is especially fitting that now that their devotion and attachment had reached the highest level of intensity, Krishna should appear as their son. Thus Garga’s verse (quoted above) must be explained as meaning, “O Nanda and Yashoda, this boy is your son and your son only, but he has on occasion, for some special reasons, taken birth as, i.e. appeared to be, the son of Vasudeva.” [69] Aloud, Snigdhakantha asked, And what happened then? [70] Madhukantha continued, When the eagerness of all the older residents of the settlement to see their king and queen have a son had become an unbearable pain, they held an emotional meeting where they anxiously discussed when Yashoda was ever going to give birth. [71] While they were gathered together, an ascetic woman suddenly appeared with a Brahmin who had just returned from the house of his spiritual master. When the Vrajavasis observed the signs of great power in her, they made no mistake in etiquette, but rose up and gave her the proper respect due a visitor of her stature. After doing so, they asked, “Who are you? You appear to be Yogamaya, the internal potency of the supreme God himself. And who is this young man, who appears to be Narada in a fresh new form?” [72] The ascetic woman smiled and answered, “My name is Paurnamasi. I am an ascetic woman who wears saffron cloth. I have never married and am able to divine the future. And this young man is named Madhumangala. He is a graduate and is indeed graced with Narada Muni’s nature. Because of our mystical powers, we always remain of the same age that you now see us being.” [73] The assembled residents asked, “How have you come to so favor us unfortunate souls with your presence?” [74] She answered, “Because we know of your great glory.” [75] They asked, “Whatever do you mean?” [76] She replied, “He who is the root of your lives, Sriman Nanda, is about to have as his son the one who gives joy to the entire world.” [77] All the Vrajavasis shivered in excitement and tears came to their eyes as they asked, “This Brihad Vana where we live is becoming a holy place. Therefore we will have a nice cottage constructed for you by the Krishna, where you will be able to find repose.” [78] Paurnamasi answered, “I see this invitiation to be an inspired statement like a new Veda, and like the revealed scriptures no one will ever be able to make it otherwise. You have said, “by the Krishna” intending the Yamuna River, which is also known by that name, but I have understood as “by Krishna," for indeed that will be the boy’s name. When that most powerful child takes his birth, the world will be freed of demons, but there will also be an ever-freshness in his qualities. The possession of the great virtues of learning, etc., will be insignificant in relation to him. Possession of great amounts of material prosperity will be meaningless in his devotion. All contradictions will be reconciled when he is born. Therefore we are resolved to stay here for your pleasure.” [79] The Vrajavasis were delighted to hear this and they praised her and went with her down to the Yamuna, whose waters had a hue more beautiful than that of a blue lotus flower. They there completed a house of leaves in which they bade her take up residence. [80] On that very day, in the flawless light of late evening, Rohini secretly arrived in her beloved Vraja on the back of a mare. [Her husband] Vasudeva had sent her there in great distress, for his mind had been withered by the passionate anger of Kamsa. When his greatly devoted wife arrived in Vraja, all the members of King Nanda’s retinue were as joyful as they would have been at the appearance of a flock of birds considered to be an auspicious augury. Enchanted with the bliss of meeting, Yashoda and Rohini embraced like the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna, giving joy not only to each other but to the rest of the Vrajavasis. [81] King Nanda's wife observed that Rohini was three months pregnant, having so become in the month of Jyaishtha. She was very pleased to know that Rohini was in a condition that she desired so much herself. [82] Then, on the first day of the dark fortnight of the month of Magh, on a night that spread joy to everyone, while Yashoda was serving her husband, she became drowsy. In that state, she had a beautiful vision that appeared to be a dream. [83] The very same boy-child she had previously seen before in her dreams was covering himself with a divine girl child who completely enveloped him. He entered her heart from the heart of King Nanda and remained there like a picture. Then the boy established himself in the lotus of her heart while the little girl went into her womb. The King of Vraja, who had felt for some time that this constant experiencing of visions of the beautiful boy was a bad sign, now rid himself of this distressing misconception and began to feel exactly as she did. <hr><font color=#669999>More shortly.<font color=#dedfdf> [This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 08-23-2001).]

Thanks for posting that information, Prabhu. I hadn’t checked Folio, I admit. As you can see, the relationship between Subhadra and other forms of Shakti – Lakshmi and Durga -- is interesting. <center>citrAM nAma kumArIM ca rohiNI-tanayA nava | citrA subhadreti punar vikhyAtA kurunandana ||</center> <blockquote>According to the Harivamsa, (critical edition 25.3, Gita Press 1.35.6) Rohini had eight sons and then she had a daughter, whose name was Chitra. This daughter was also known as Subhadra.</blockquote> The Gita Press edition adds this note, without giving any source material, that Chitra died in childbirth. On dying, she lamented that she had taken birth in the Yadu family, but had been unable to witness Lord Krishna’s pastimes. Her wish to see Krishna’s lila was fulfilled and she took birth again as Rohini’s daughter, Subhadra. That seems pretty clear that Subhadra is Rohini’s daughter. I checked the Bhagavata reference and saw that it does not come from the Bhagavata but from Vishwanath’s commentary. I don’t have other commentaries, so I don’t know if Jiva or Sanatan say the same thing. I have a friend who can check this and will ask him to do so. Rohini's eight sons were: Rama, Sarana, Satha, Durda, Damana, Svabhra, Pindaraka, and Ushinara.

I didn't know about the MOVE case. Here is a URL that a search uncovered: http://www.iacenter.org/movetrl.htm http://www.media.mit.edu/people/davet/mop/film-info.html http://shadow.autono.net/sin001/mum_case.htm

I went ahead and scanned in the remaining bit of Rochford's report, which I find to be as devastatingly dead-on now as it was when it came out two years ago. Any signs of action on any of these recommendations? <hr> <h3>Recommendations</h3> The findings presented in this report document the ongoing change of ISKCON as a religious organization. It points to the existing and building tensions between a monastic, high commitment, and communal form of social organization and one characterized by independent householders whose religious and organizational commitments are often less intense and whose involvements are more irregular and segmental. These findings are compatible with other studies of ISKCON in North America (Rochford 1995b, 1997) and in Western and Eastern Europe (Rochford 1995a, forthcoming a). With the decline of communism many devotees--especially householders and their children--spend much of their everyday lives within mainstream cultures, either working outside jobs and/or attending state-supported or other non-ISKCON schools. As devotees have moved outside the movement's communal structure to establish independent households, ISKCON has lost its previous control over the lives and behavior of its membership (Rochford 1995b). Communal control has been vastly reduced and individual devotees freely make choices about how they wish to live their lives and raise their children. ISKCON, as this implies, can be characterized as an increasingly pluralistic movement comprised of members with strikingly different commitments and levels of ISKCON involvement. Given this pattern of change the question of paramount importance is how will ISKCON go about the task of integrating this increasingly diverse congregation into its communities? Perhaps more to the point, is it the position of the leadership that families should be, in fact, more fully integrated into ISKCON and its communities? But this question raises a broader one that I think must be allowed by leaders and anyone else who claims either membership in ISKCON, or to be a follower of Prabhupada. What is your image of what ISKCON should be, should aspire to in the future? Is the ideal ISKCON you hold in your mind's eye tied largely to the movement's past; communities of devotees living communally, members dedicated first and foremost to missionary activity, a membership with high levels of commitment to and involvement in ISKCON and Krishna Consciousness, sannyasis with considerable political as well as spiritual authority and power? Or, is your image of ISKCON one that more reflects ISKCON as we see it today in the West, and increasingly in other parts of the world; a congregation of people holding varying levels of commitment to ISKCON and their Krishna conscious beliefs and practices, where members are as much or more involved in the conventional world as with ISKCON? I raise these questions only because the meaning that readers give to the findings presented in this report relate directly to their visions of ISKCON and what Prabhupada's movement "should be." Just as obviously any person's recommendations about what must be done to make ISKCON a better instrument for Prabhupada's movement will also be derived from these at least somewhat idiosyncratic images. To someone committed to an organizational model based on renunciation, preaching, and communalism, ongoing changes in the direction of pluralism and congregationalism may well be seen as trends that lead ISKCON away from its true purposes. For others, these very same changes reflect the building strength of the movement because it is increasingly reaching into conventional societies in more diverse and perhaps influential ways. As a sociologist, my own images of ISKCON are seen through lenses shaped by theory and research in the sociology of religion. I assume that change is an inevitable part of the development of any religious organization or community; though, it is true, that some groups have remained far more resistance to change than others. Yet there is a clear tendency in the social science of religion to attend to the social forces that push religious groups and movements in the direction of secularization (accommodation to the conventional secular culture and its values and way of life>. I believe, for example, that the inability to integrate family life within ISKCON's communities has been a (if not the) major force giving rise to growing congregationalism (Rochford 1995a, 1995b,1997). The widespread concern throughout the movement today with issues of social development suggests that many devotees share such a point of view. For, in fact, social development as presently being discussed in ISKCON is largely about families and family life. I offer the following recommendations for no reason other than to help guide the leadership as it considers the question of ISKCON's social development and the broader future of the movement. I am not trying to tell the leaders what to do, although at times it may seem like it. Rather my intention is to suggest what could be done and what areas represent the most immediate problems requiring attention. I realize that it is easy to make recommendations when one is under no obligation to make them happen. I am mindful of that, even if my recommendations sound bold and often ignorant of the conditions under which the leadership is often forced to work. In the most general terms, it is time for ISKCON's leaders to move beyond the crisis mode. Most well informed members or observers of ISKCON realize that ISKCON's leaders have spent the last 20 years "putting out fires" of one sort or another. Although this has often been a necessary stance it has made it impossible for the leadership to address the fundamental needs of ISKCON's membership. In fighting battles of one sort or another, be they internal (e.g., guru issues) or external (e.g., lawsuits), the fact is many devotees have come to believe that the leadership has failed to vigorously address their needs--most particularly householders. ISKCON has evolved as a religions movement but that evolution more often than not has been unplanned and spontaneous. As the findings presented here suggest, members often feel estranged and powerless because they believe that the leadership is generally unresponsive to their needs for devotee-based employment, education for their children, fair-minded and efficient management, and the like. Please understand I am talking perception. But this perception has ultimately eroded the fundamental trust between those who lead and ISKCON's membership. I believe that one result of this is that devotees are aligning themselves with the ritvîk movement and other challenging groups not out of any conviction about what Prabhupada intended for the guru system1 but because they are frustrated and even angry that ISKCON's leadership has net responded constructively as they struggle to raise their families in Krishna Consciousness. I think it time for the leadership to dedicate itself (even in the midst of present and future "fires") to making progress on a few specific issues that will benefit ISKCON's membership. In saying this I realize that progress has been made on a number of fronts such as child protection and education. But more could be done and this should be made an institutional priority and not one that grows out of an immediate problem that must be fixed. Think and plan pro-actively. There is both real and symbolic value in such an approach. Devotees' needs will be better served and, in time, the membership will come to trust that the leaders have their interests squarely in mind. Given this perhaps overly bold preamble allow me to raise a few specific issues that are candidates for immediate attention. Some will take long-term planning and involve considerable resources. Others could be done rather quickly given the will of the GBC. I begin with economics, because I think a number of other things rest on building an adequate economic infrastructure to support devotees and ISKCON's communities. (1) Building an Economic Infrastructure. As this report has amply demenstrated, devotees--especially householders--have been forced to seek employment outside of ISKCON's communities. The results of this trend have not always been beneficial to ISKCON or to the spiritual lives of devotees themselves. ISKCON members working outside are less likely to remain as involved in their religious practices, are less involved in and committed to ISKCON, are more involved in the outside conventional culture, and less committed to a Krishna conscious world view. But the unavailability ef movement/devotee-based employment has other implications for ISKCON and its membership. Over the last few years greater attention has been focused on education within ISKCON. This has involved educating new adult members to the movement as well as children growing up in ISKCON. While most people would applaud these efforts it remains the case that, even should ISKCON build a laudable system ef education, a serious problem remains. Even if ISKCON were able to build a gurukula system that was ideal, however defined, it still remains the case that young men and women who complete their secondary education have little or no future within ISKCON's communities. This is because there are few paying jobs that would allow devotees to be self-supporting, especially if they have families. However educated ISKCON's young adults become, they ultimately have few viable options open to them except to seek empleyment in the conventional labor market. This very fact suggests that ISKCON's social needs must be considered holistically. It is not enough to "fix" one part of ISKCON's social system without addressing the system as a whole. Prabhupada, and many of his followers, have suggested that varnashram provides such a holistic solution. Leaders have to think of sankirtan primarily in terms of preaching, rather than in terms of the financial resources it brings. Without question sankirtan has brought large sums of money into ISKCON and has bankrolled ISKCON's worldwide expansion (Rochford 1985). Yet in every case that I am aware of, sankirtan revenues begin to diminish in time, most often at the very moment when householder life expands and the need for resources increases. Sankirtan should be considered a short-term economic strategy; one that can help finance other types ef entrepreneurial activity supportive of ISKCON's membership and ISKCON itself. Without a stable financial base ISKCON's communities have fragmented and devotees have in various ways lost the social supports that encouraged their spiritual pursuits and goals for self-realization. I recommend that the GBC immediately establish regional economic committees comprised of devotees who have proven themselves productive businessmen and businesswomen and/or economic strategists. I say regional because I expect that while a movement-wide economic strategy might be possible, it is more likely that economic plans will vary by region, country, and perhaps even by community. These planning committees should be given authority to develop economic proposals, raise funds to launch businesses, and maintain a degree of autonomy that allows for werking without being compromised by political considerations. I think the goal of these committees should center foremost on employment for devotees, not raising money per se. As such entrepreneurial activity that is labor intensive and capable of employing large numbers of people should be favored. Computer businesses may be profitable for example but they usually are incapable of employing significant numbers of people. Work not profit should be the fundamental goal. (2) Restoring Trust in the Leadership. This report has shown conclusively that the authority (or lack thereof) of ISKCON's gurus and the GBC represent the most significant predictors of member commitment to ISKCON. Quite simply, it is clear that many ISKCON member's (temple devotees, congregational members) and former members alike place minimal trust in ISKCON's leadership. Child abuse, the mistreatment and abuse of women, the neglect of householders, guru scandals, etc., all have eroded the trust that binds devotees to Prabhupada's movement. In organizational terms as well as spiritual ones, ISKCON at its core is in the midst of a crisis of trust. As Seligman argues, the "existence of trust is an essential component of all enduring social relationships" (1997:13) and is indeed necessary for the continuation of any social order. Leaders can only be effective when followers have faith in those entrusted with positions of leadership. This not uniformly the case in many portions of the ISKCON world. Now, with the demise of Harikesa Prabhu, there is reason to believe that this crisis has grown deeper. I recommend that the GBC immediately form a committee whose purpose is to consider how the movement's leadership can restore the trust of ISKCON's membership as well as among those who have chosen to leave the movement. The committee's work should not be about how to strategically defend ISKCON against its critics. Rather it should focus on how to honestly address the concerns of devotees who have been mistreated and abused directly, or by the policies of ISKCON's leadership. As an act of good faith, the committee should consider the possibility of including a limited number of devotees who have been critical of the leadership. Obviously such persons, like all other members of the committee, would be required to affirm his or her commitment to the committee's goals and purposes. (3) Reenfranchising ISKCON Women. It is clear that both women and men see the need to expand women's spiritual and material roles within the movement. As this report has shown, there is considerable support for women playing a more active and equal role in ISKCON's spiritual and community life. Men and women overwhelmingly agree that Prabhupada viewed his male and female disciples as spiritual equals. And there is evidence that Prabhupada implemented policies and procedures that were meant to be inclusive of women. It seems clear that the majority of the devotees surveyed want women to have rights and responsibilities as given to them by Srila Prabhupada before a backlash against women occurred in the early and mid-1970s (see Ravindra Svarupa 1994; Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi 1997; Radha Devi Dasi 1998). While ISKCON has an obligation to protect women (Executive Committee Letter 1998) leaders also have a responsibility to keep ISKCON a functioning organization able to preach and meet the spiritual needs of its membership. Given the manpower shortages that exist in many temples, ISKCON can ill afford to disenfranchise a large portion of its membership. While perhaps wrong theologically (Jyetirmayi Devi Dasi 1997), and with respect to fundamental human rights (Radha Dasi 1998), it is also simply foolish as an organizational strategy. While many regions of the ISKCON world are in desperate need of human capital to deal with the day-to-day functioning of temple communities, it remains the case that women and women's contributions too often remain undervalued and underutilized. Organizationally ISKCON cannot afford such a position and in fact there are growing numbers of women serving as temple presidents and holding other significant management and administrative positions. I recommend that ISKCON leaders immediately move to restore the rights and responsnbilities afferded women by Srila Prabhupada. Men should be educated accordingly. (A good start for everyone would be to read the articles by Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi 1997, and Radha Devi Dasi 1998.). Guru and non-guru leaders should teach respect for women; women should again be viewed as capable devotees in the service of Prabhupada's movement rather than as temptresses or other such derogatery characterizations. To do so would immediately increase the self-esteem of women and make them more productive members of ISKCON. By acknowledging women's value and worth as human and spiritial beings it will also make the movement more attractive to potential members who view ISKCON's position on women as antiquated and morally objectionable. (4) Education and Children. ISKCON is slowly losing its most significant resource for the future: its children. A startling percentage of the movement's children are leaving ISKCON or are choosing to remain marginal to it (see Kraybill 1989, on the retention of Arnish children into adulthood). Friendships and ties with parents eften have more holding power on ISKCON's second generation than ties to ISKCON, or even to the practice of Krishna Consciousness. Certainly, child abuse has directly and indirectly affected significant portion of ISKCON's new young adults, but this is only one part of the story. For the fact is that ISKCON has yet to find an adequate replacement to the ashram system of schooling. Many parents in the survey express the view that the ISKCON day-school in their community is not adequately meeting the spiritual and academic needs of children. Teachers often feel that ISKCON has not done nearly enough to support them in their efforts to create better schools.Over the past two years ISKCON's leadership has committed itself to improving education within the movement both for adult members and children. From what I can tell, a substantial start has been made on this front. Yet this initiative has recently been hampered by the defection of Harikesa Prabhu and the (momentary?) loss of resources he had committed to educational projects. Yet ISKCON must begin to build for the future, and like any society that prospers, education must become part of the equation that produces that prosperity. Here I mean education in the broadest sense of the word. Parents, with the assistance of ISKCON, must educate their children, but this education must be centered on goals and purposes that are distinct to ISKCON as a religious organization. Because of this, ISKCON has a central role to play in the socialization and education of the movement's youngest members. In doing the job well ISKCON promises to reap the benefits of a core of young, enthusiastic devotees wanting to push forward Prabhupada's movement. to fail means that ISKCON has essentially squandered its most vital resource and the basis of its future. One only has to stand to the back of any temple in North America to see that there is a clear "graying of the Hare Krishnas." (This too will likely be an issue of significance in the immediate future.) I believe that the movement has to continue in its efforts to acknowledge the mistreatment of second generation devotees in the 1970s and 1980s. It also has to do whatever possible to respond to the real needs of these young men and women. Certainly "Children of Krishna" is precisely such an initiative. But ISKCON's leaders must continue to work with and provideresources to teachers and schools if the movement is to nurture the development of its children. I recommend that recent efforts to improve education within ISKCON continue at full-pace. The education committee now in place must continue to receive the financial and other means of support it needs to promote education in ISKCON. Of equal importance, the leadership must not waver in its commitment to education and thereby to ISKCON's future hope. Educators and children must be seen as the keepers of ISKCON's future, not simply as parties who make demands on scarce resources. The sociologist of religion Rodney Stark writes that any new religion that hopes to succeed must "find important things for young people to do on behalf of their faith" (1987:25). It is time that ISKCON provide the training and support its children need in order to meet the challenges that lie ahead for ISKCON in the twenty-first century.

This is an interesting and important area of discussion. I think some of you may be interested in E. Burke Rochford's "Prabhupada Centennial Survey: Final Report", where he highlights this issue as one of the areas where ISKCON needs to take action. Unfortunately, Iskcon seems to have, after engaging Rochford in the work of surveying more than 2000 devotees from 53 countries, to have swept his conclusions and recommendations under the rug. By so doing, they have simply confirmed the conclusions of the report itself. One cannot read this report without feeling doom. I scanned pages 21-24. If there is any interest, I will continue with the section on Recommendations (pp. 24-29). <hr> <h3>Summary and Recommendations</h3> The following represents a summary of the major findings presented in this report. There is a striking lack of trust between ISKCON members and the movement's leadership, as well as between devotees themselves. Survey respondents across regions expressed the view that there is a lack of honest and open communication between devotees; that impersonalism has been allowed to dominate devotee relations in place of friendship, respect, and caring. The findings presented also demonstrate that a lack of authority (and a related lack of trust) attributed to the gurus and/or the GBC institution has had major consequences for devotees' commitments to ISKCON (full-time, congregational, and former ISKCON members alike). Many devotee respondents expressed the view that ISKCON suffers from poor management and that leaders are not always responsive to those they serve. There is reason to suspect that this only breeds mistrust and a sense that local as well as regional leaders are out of touch with the needs and lives of the average member. A set of concerns expressed by devotees worldwide falls under the general heading of social development. As the data demonstrate conclusively, the nuclear family has effectively displaced communalism as the movement's foundational structure of social organization in most parts of the world. Even in the newly formed ISKCON communities in Eastern Europe and the CIS, a sizable percentage of householders are living and working outside the movement's communities. By favoring a renunciate-sectarian model organizationally in the face of an expanding grhastha ashram, ISKCON has generally failed to integrate families and family life into its communities. Until recent discussions of "social development,' ISKCON has done little toward building an internal domestic culture capable of supporting householders and their children. Two elements of social development were given special attention by survey respondents: (a) The lack of employment opportunities within ISKCON. As the findings demonstrate, a large portion of ISKCON's worldwide membership is working in conventional jobs. As sankirtan has become (and becomes) less of a source of revenue for ISKCON's communities, devotees have been forced to seek employment in the outside labor market. This has primarily affected householders. The result is that devotees working in non-devotee work environments are less involved in and committed to their religious beliefs and practices, and to ISKCON as a religious organization. Of telling significance is that 80% cf the respondents working outside of ISKCON say they would work within the movement, if employment was available allowing them to support themselves and/or their families. The survey findings give further support to ongoing discussions concerning the urgency cf developing varnashram within ISKCON. Although varnashram appears to mean different things to different devotees it nonetheless remains clear that there is a pervasive belief that something must be done to ensure that ISKCON members have the opportunity to work together, rather than in non-devotee jobs.(fn11) (b) Inadequate educational alternatives within ISKCON. Findings from the survey suggest that children, like their parents, are spending a good portion of their daily lives associating with non-devotees while attending schools outside of ISKCON's communities. As the evidence presented suggests, parents report that their chudren often grow up having few commitments to ISKCON and, more often than not, remain more or less uninvolved in the practice of sadhana-bhakti. While such a finding is hardly unusual, as many young people become estranged from their religious faith in adolescence, it still raises questions about ISKCON's future given the paucity of new adult recruits to the movement in at least some parts of the world. Yet in the case of young devotee children who attend public/state-supported schools there is another force at work which differs from the average non-devotee young person who withdraws from his or her faith during adolescence. As I have shown elsewhere (Rochford forthcoming b), attending public-state-supported schools for devotee youths tends to erode their collective identity as ISKCON members; although many hold te their identity as devotees of Krishna. In seeking social acceptance from their new non-devotee peers, devotee young people have essentially felt the need to subvert their ISKCON identity to avoid the stigma attached to being a Hare Krishna. Without adequate schools to train ISKCON's children spiritually and academically one can only expect that more and more parents will choose to educate their children outside the movement. While most survey respondents suggest a preference for ashram-based gurukulas one wonders if such a view continues to hold given recent revelations about child abuse within the ashrams during the 1970s and 1980s. It may be that the ashram-based schools are seen as a viable alternative because some parents express general dissatisfaction with the spiritual and academic training provided by their local ISKCON community day-school. Also, of course, Prabhupada established these schools with the best interests of the children in mind. Both women and men recognize that (mis)treatment cf women within the movement over the years has negatively affected women's sense of self-esteem and limited their ability to make spiritual progress. Most also agreed that the climate toward women within ISKCON has improved in recent years. Men and women supported the idea that women's roles should be expanded within ISKCON and that women, being the spiritual equals of men, should have the same opportunities for devotional service where performance, not gender, is the determining criteria. As was true during the early days of the movement (see Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi 1997) respondents tended to agree (with some gender variations) that men and women should worship on different sides of the temple, chant japa collectively in the temple (slightly less than a majority of men support), that women should be able te lead public kirtans in the temple, give classes, and serve as Temple Presidents when qualified. Fewer men and women supported the idea of women serving as gurus. Of critical importance te the stability of ISKCON has been the erosion of traditional religious authority in the face of scandal and controversy involving ISKCON's gurus and sannyasîs <see Rochf ord 1985,1998b; Goswarni, Tamal Krishna 1997). These very scandais have served te promote ritvik ideas, both within ISKCON's communities and among dissidents outside the movement's ranks. But even aniong devotees whe reject the ritvik philosophy there still has been an effort to further elevate Prabhupada as the primary source of religious authority within ISKCON. In sum, the authority of the present gurus has been openly questioned and Srila Prabhupada has become the source of legitimate religious authority within ISKCON and the broader movement. Because of continuing scandal involving gurus, survey respondents expressed a desire te place strong bureaucratic controls on qualifications for becoming an ISKCON guru, and on the behavior and lifestyle of the gurus. Many respondents offered the view that the reform movement of the mid-1980s did not go far enough in piacing adequate centrols on the independent autherity and power of ISKCON's gurus. Related to the demise of religious authority has been the apparent decline of GBC authority among some portions of ISKCON's membership. Many cengreg~tionai members fer example expressed the belief that they have been left with littie input in how ISKCON is geverned. As a resuit many feit that the GBC had littie real relevance te their lives as devetees. This is perhaps most pronounced in the area of the GBC's failure te address the needs ef householders and their chudren. A sizable percentage of ISKCON's congregational members believed that a representational form of government would help broaden the variety of viewpoints feund on the GBC. Full-time members, congregational members and former ISKCON devotees alike expressed the view that the GBC had not gone far enough in its efforts to control the gurus and the guru institution. As the regression analyses demonstrate, member commitment to ISKCON is most influenced by views about the GBC and ISKCON's gurus (among a number of other variables, see Tables 12-14). For full-time members the authority placed in the GBC had a strong influence on ISKCON commitment. Those full time respondents who viewed the GBC favorably (having a high level of authority) were also most likely to be highly committed to ISKCON. Conversely, these who saw the CBC as having little authority were more likely te have less commitment to ISKCON. Interestingly, guru authority was not a significant predictor of ISKCON commitment for initiated full-time ISKCON members. For congregational members, the authority of the GBC had a significant influence on commitment to ISKCON; yet the strongest influence for initiated congregational members was the authority of the gurus. The pattern among former ISKCON members parallels the findings for full-time members. The authority of the GBC had by far the greatest influence on ISKCON commitment with the authority of the gurus having no significant effect.

This is the second time Ajay Shah has broken this forum's etiquette in recent memory. I don't appreciate this language at all. Jagat

I never thought I would ever refer to this book again. This is from a book I translated a few years ago. Le monde de Mikal • Enlightened "walking" Of all the practices that lead to enlightenment, meditation in the zazen posture described above is the most popular. I would like, however, to introduce another basic Zen practice, namely the upright walking position called "kinhin." This particular position allows one to practice meditation while moving. It consists of walking clockwise in a circle as part of a single file of practitioners. Each member of the group walks slowly and calmly along an established path. The forward movement is rhythmic, alternating regularly between tension and relaxation. As with zazen, this meditative movement also leads to a very high quality of concentration. For this reason, the two positions are alternated during a day of intensive practice. The Master Taisen Deshimaru gives a clear and detailed description of the kinhin method of practice: "Stand upright, holding the spine straight, the chin tucked in, the nape of the neck rigid, the gaze fixed at a point three metres in front of you, i.e., at about the height of the waist of the person standing in front of you in line. The left thumb should be held tightly in the left fist, which is held flat against the solar plexus. The right hand is wrapped around the left fist and the two hands held tightly together and placed against the sternum during exhalation. The forearms are held horizontally with the elbows kept away from the ribs. The shoulders should be relaxed and held back. As you exhale, you should take half a step forward with the right foot, pressing down energetically on the sole of the foot, at the base of the big toe, as though you want to leave a footprint in the soil. There is an important connection between the extremity of the foot and the brain. It is desirable to feel the contact with the earth. The knee should be held rigid and the entire leg as well as the rest of the right side of the body from the top of the head to the tips of the toes should be tensed. Meanwhile, the other side of the body should be kept fluid and relaxed. "While making this movement, exhale slowly and completely for as long as possible, taking care not to force the breath or make any sound. When the exhalation is complete, stop for a moment, relaxing the entire body and allowing the inhalation to take place freely, automatically. At the beginning of the next exhalation, change legs, and repeat the entire procedure with the left foot while keeping the right side relaxed and fluid... While walking in this way, you should not look at the faces of the other people in the group. You should rather be looking within, just as though you were all alone. As with zazen meditation, you should just let your thoughts pass over you." • Enlightened movement Here is what Mikal has to say (following B. Baudoin in the work already cited) on the subject of the movement which helps attain the minimum consciousness needed for enlightenment: "Another significant attitude which is specific to Zen teaching is that which is named ‘the spirit of the act' or zanshin. Literally, the word zanshin means the spirit which remains, without becoming attached -- the mind that remains in a state of vigilance. "Zanshin consists in being fully conscious of the action in which you are engaged, even while remaining aware of the one that is to follow. It is a kind of mental training in which one learns to concentrate on one's acts. "What is really of interest in this demeanour of mindfulness is that it can be put into practice at every moment of our daily lives -- even as we perform such ordinary, anodyne acts as opening a door, eating a meal, picking up some object, carrying a bag, driving a car, or playing ping-pong. In each case, it is important to fix the mind on what you are doing, to maintain a maximal flow of energy in the act being performed, even while remaining ready for any unexpected event which may require immediate response. "Zanshin is a particularly rewarding application of Zen, as it involves every act in a person's life."

Wondering if anyone has any commments on the following: <h3>The Quality of Chanting - Solution?</h3> By Cakra Pani das Since the spiritual health of individuals and our organizations are very intimate connected with the quality of chanting the Holy Names of Sri Krishna, I would like to introduce a new technique of chanting the Maha Mantra, which has proved to be quite potential for a beginner like I am. It is a technique of how to focus the mind on the Holy Name without giving him the chance of "spacing out", of wandering away into the countless subjects he is normally involved in. We could call it the Swastika - Method since it is based on a parikrama - path that has very much the dynamic form of a swastika. We see often a similar technique used by devotees who walk in a circle around a tulasi plant, while chanting the holy name. I did this by my self many times in the early morning hours, in order to stay awake, but very soon I found my self in the dream world far away from the Holy Name although I was totally awake. So now try to imagine: Instead of walking in a circle, you walk on a pathway in form of a square around the tulasi plant. And whenever you have reached a corner, you stop walking until you have finished the full sequence Maha Mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare. And then by this last Hare you turn around 90 degrees and continue to walk slowly towards the next corner, and continue your chanting. Like this, it almost impossible to space out, since you are only allowed to continue the walk, when you have reached the end of the Maha Mantra. Otherwise you simply stay in your corner, but very soon you will figure out that your mind has gone somewhere else. You can further intensify this method, by posting a Maha Mantra on the end of each walking direction. Or you can do it just on two corners and, in order to brake the circle of your mind, you try it on the two other corners without the postings. So if you have problems chanting the Holy Name, just try this simple method, and very easily you will dive into the Nectar Ocean of the Holy Name. Happy Chanting http://www.chakra.org/articles/2001/08/19/chanting/index.htm

http://www.rediff.com/us/2001/aug/13fra.htm

In Jagannath Puri, Subhadra's birthday is celebrated on Janmastami. According to the Niladri-mahodayam, Mahamaya was conceived in the womb of Yashoda and took her birth in the family of Nanda. Vasudeva then exchanged Krishna and Durga as Krishna ordered him to do. Mahamaya’s birth is celebrated in the Jagannath temple along with Krishna’s birth. Subhadra Devi represents Durga and hence is given special prayers and worshiped during the Durga Janmotsava. However, technically speaking, the Subhadra who marries Arjuna is NOT the same as the Durga born on this day. The name of that deity is Ekanamsa. Historically speaking, however, Subhadra in Puri probably IS Ekanamsa -- even though Ekanamsa is described in Harivamsa as being black, while Subhadra has a golden color. There are very old temple carvings showing figures of Krishna and Balaram with Ekanamsa standing between them. There are old Smriti texts that describe the way these deities are to be carved and what they are to hold in their hands, etc. There is no tradition of such worship of the Subhadra who became Arjuna's wife. (By the way, Subhadra is the daughter of Vasudeva and Rohini.) In the Jagannath temple, Subhadra is worshiped with the same mantra (Bhuvanesvari mantra) as Bimala Devi, so the identity of Subhadra with Durga is pretty clear. Many Shakta scriptures give Subhadra as one of the names of Durga. If anyone wants more details, just ask. I have it all at my fingertips! Bhakti Promode Puri Maharaj writes: <blockquote>Lord Balaram is the master of all the living entities within the creation. He is the alter-ego of Lord Jagannath. If he is content by the jiva’s service, he will induce the all-auspicious Lady Subhadra, the personification of pure devotional service, to cast a benevolent glance on him and give the opportunity to serve Lord Jagannath.</blockquote> Here is some more stuff from Mandala Media's upcoming book on Jagannath Puri. Please excuse the writing; it still needs quite a bit of polishing -- <hr> <h3>Subhadra</h3> Sanatan Goswami calls Jagannath subhadrä-lälana-vyagra, “One eager to shower Subhadra with affection.” Subhadra’s form is described in the Skanda-purana: <center>tayor madhya-sthitAM lakSmIM subhadrAM bhadra-rupiNIm sarva-devAraNIM pApa-sAgarottAra-kAriNIm vikacAmbhoja-vadanIM varAbjAbhaya-kAriNIm kunkumAruNa-dehAM tAM sAkSAl-lakSmIm ivAparAm</center> <blockquote>He saw Subhadra, a manifestation of Lakshmi Devi and the embodiment of all auspiciousness, standing between Krishna and Balaram. She is the source of all the demigods; she takes everyone across the ocean of sin. Her face is like a blooming lotus. She holds a lotus in one hand and with the other gives the boon of fearlessness. Her body is the color of saffron; indeed, she is like another manifestation of Lakshmi Devi. (Utkala-khanda, 19.45-46)</blockquote> According to Harivamsa (25.1), Subhadra Devi is the only daughter of Vasudeva and Rohini. She is thus the younger sister of Balaram. In Krishna lila, she was married to Arjuna and had a famous son, Abhimanyu. The story of her marriage to Arjuna can be found in the Mahabharata (Adi Parva 218-220). In fact, however, Subhadra is Lord Jagannath's personified energy. There is no distinction between Krishna and Balaram. As the original supreme person, Krishna is primarily the possessor of the energy of consciousness (samvit shakti); Balaram is His first expansion and the possessor of the energy of existence (sandhini sakti), i.e., creation. Subhadra, who stands between them, is the personification of all auspiciousness (hladini sakti). This is the meaning of her name. She is thus a manifestation of Lakshmi Devi, the Lord’s internal potency, who by her blessings bestows auspiciousness on all beings. She is the personification of pure devotional service. One thus proceeds through Balaram, the manifestation of the spiritual master, to the practice of pure devotional service, Subhadra, through which one can attain Krishna himself. Thus, although the Puranas tell us that Subhadra is Jagannath’s sister, she is truly His Shakti. The following text from the Utkala-khanda supports this understanding (19.11-17): <blockquote>Subhadra is Lakshmi, the form of all consciousness, in another body. During Krishna’s incarnation, she is born in the womb of Rohini. She took a form like that of Balaram because of having meditated on him. She cannot stand to be separated for even a moment from the blue source of all incarnations, Jagannath. O Brahmins! There is no difference between Krishna and Balaram. It is thus generally said that the two of them were born in the same womb. The Puranas say that Subhadra is Balaram’s sister. Lakshmi Devi always appears both in male and female forms. As a male, she is Lord Vishnu; as a female, she is Lakshmi Devi. She is present within the gods, animals and humans as the indwelling Supersoul. Who else but the lotus-eyed Balaram, in his form as Ananta, can hold the fourteen worlds on his hoods? Subhadra is His sister and His energy; she gives Him His opulence. Sudarshan is the Lord’s discus, who remains always in his hand. (Utkala-khanda 19.11-17)</blockquote> The following statement is found in the fourth chapter of the Niladri-mahodaya, <center>bhaktAnAm avanAyaiva tathA bhadrApi bhadradA adho-lambita-hastAbjA kunkumAbhA zubhAnanA</center> <blockquote>The two arms of the beautiful, red-colored Subhadra hang down by her sides. The very embodiment of auspiciousness, she has come to save all the devotees and bestow auspiciousness on them.</blockquote> <h3>Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s siddhanta</h3> In an article named “The Temple of Jagannath at Puri,” which appeared in the newspaper Tajpore on Sept. 17, 1872, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur gave the following explanation of Jagannath, Balaram, Subhadra and Sudarshan, the four deities that stand on the Ratnavedi: <blockquote>In the middle room [of the temple], there is an elevated seat on which stand four different forms, viz., Jagannath, Balaram, Subhadra and Sudarshan. According to the Vedanta, God is one without a second, but He has infinite energies and attributes which are not fully known to man. But then man perceives only three energies in God, because he has no other corresponding sides to understand the other powers. From one of the energies proceeds matter in all its different forms and properties and this energy is styled the Maya Shakti of God. From the second energy proceeds all spiritual creation, in all its relations and phases. This power is entitled the Jiva Shakti of God. The third energy perceivable by man is the energy of Will, which is called Chit Shakti. God moving in creation is what is meant by this infinite energy. Jagannath is the emblem of God having no other form than the eyes and the hands. They mean to show that God sees and knows and creates. Balaram is Jiva Shakti of God; Subhadra is the Maya Shakti and Sudarshan is the energy of will. We cannot form any idea of God separated. We form all ideas of these energies and hence it is that the worship of Jagannath depends upon the collection of these four forms on the same platform. Here we see God analysed in the shape of forms for the sake of those who want to conceive of Him. It is the same thing to see Jagannath as to study the Vedanta in all its branches. The temple and its institution appear to me to be a book for those who can read it. To the foolish, the institution is certainly useless, except of reminding the Deity who created the world.</blockquote> Another interpretation of the three deities is that Jagannath is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself; Balaram is the manifestation of the spiritual master, the Lord’s personal expansion; Subhadra is Krishna’s svarupa shakti, the incarnation of devotion itself. Everywhere in the Vaishnava world, the Lord’s three manifestations as the Supreme Lord himself, the spiritual master and the devotee are accepted. Kaviraj Goswami writes at the beginning of the Chaitanya Charitamrita that one makes an auspicious beginning by remembering these three manifestations of the Divine. <center>guru vaiSNava bhagavAn tinera smaraNa tinera smaraNe haya vighna-vinAzana anAyAse haya nija vAnchita pUraNa</center> <blockquote>I meditate on the guru, the Vaishnavas and the Lord. By remembering them, all obstacles are destroyed and one quickly attains the fulfillment of all desires. (CC 1.1.20-21)</blockquote> In Jagannath Puri, one most often hears that the trinity of Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra represent Vishnu, Shiva and Durga. This is reflected by many of the rituals in the Jagannath temple – for example, Subhadra is worshiped with the same Bhuvaneshwari-mantra that is used for Bimala Devi. This is not unacceptable to Vaishnava siddhänta since Sada Shiva is an expansion of Balaram in His work of creation. <hr> I don't know of anything about Subhadra and hair, but there is a story about Jagannath and hair (again taken from the upcoming Mandala Media publication): <blockquote>For the first twenty-five days of the month of Karttik, Lord Jagannath is dressed as Damodar and Subhadra as Radharani. Many dancing gopis made of sola (spongewood) and jari (gold thread) are placed on the altar in front of their Lordships. The following legend is told about how the Radha Damodar Vesh first started. Once a Taluccha Mahapatra temple priest had an affair with a lady friend. It was his duty to bring Lord Jagannath’s prasadi flowers to the king, and one day the king found a woman's long black hair in these flowers. He became furious and went to the temple with the intention of punishing the priest for engaging in impure activities while serving the Deities. In the meantime, however, the Talucchon Mahapatra was desparately looking for a way to save himself. He had an idea: he put a wig on Lord Jagannath in the hope that he could explain the black hair away. The king was no fool and saw what was going on. He pulled at the wig, hoping to rip it off and prove that it was fake. But miraculously, Lord Jagannath began to bleed from his head. The astonished king thought that the priest’s love affair must be very pure for the Lord Himself to intervene and so he forgave him. In celebration of the Lord’s own love for Radharani, this king inaugurated the Radha Damodar Vesh.</blockquote> I have seen no evidence that wigs are used in any of Jagannath's puja at the present time. A curious story, though. <hr> Just a word about the book on Jagannath Puri, which as you can see is chock-full of nectar: It is based on several sources. I have translated about 20 articles by Bhakti Promode Puri Maharaj describing various aspects of Jagannath Puri. Puri Maharaj also asked his disciples to translate a book about Jagannath Puri called Sri Kshetra. I was asked to fulfill this desire on behalf of Puri Maharaj's disciples. Since Sri Kshetra is over 50 years old, I had to supplement this material with a lot of other research. The finished product, which is still a few months away, will be a real delight, I assure you. Anyone familiar with Mandala Media's publications knows the fine quality of the books. This edition will have many beautiful photographs, maps and drawings. Though many sources are cited, any statements on siddhanta are taken from authoritative Gaudiya Math sources. Your servant, Jagadananda Das.

Dear J.N. Prabhu, It's very tiresome, I know, but this Bhaktin Neha needs to be reprimanded for this use of language. Could you please do the needful? Your servant, Jagadananda Das.

<h3>More experiences in Houston temple</h3> Houston temple also had many nice festivals and we would hold them in the vacant lot on the side of the temple. The temple had acquired this huge pandal tent from India and hundreds of people would attend. One year a group of devotee came and we put on the Ramayan play, which was very well done, indeed, really well done. I went to many places in the Indian community inviting everyone to please attend the Ramayan and many persons did come. I even went to the Sikh Gurudwar and they were very surprised that I had come and that we were having Ramayan play. "You will have Ram Lila," they told me. "If it is true, every Sikh would want to come.” And they did. I stayed at the Gurudwar for bhajans and prasad. In India we would often stay at the Sikh Gurudwars and the ladies would make chapattis for us. We would give them the flour and after a few moments a huge stack of fresh hot chapattis would appear. With each festival I would print a small invitation with a picture of Lord Rama or Lord Krishna if it was Janmashtami time and mail them out to all the Indian members of the community, about five hundred or so flyers. It took a long while to do. I was doing this on the floor of the prasadam room while Tripurari and his book distributors, who were in town, were taking some prasad. Tripurari just gave me this sneer like, what a worthless waste of time you are. He was only into book distribution at the time and that was it. Dealing with the Indian community wasn’t what he saw as important. There was this nice life member named Prem who would always come about looking for me to tell his problems, of which he had a lot. His father was the former head of defense of India, he said, and his sister was to be married to a man from another family, also from high in the Indian government. The day of the wedding, the groom took his new wife into the temple of Goddess Durga and killed her in front of the deity. It was headline news for weeks, he told me. It was then that Prem left India and came to America Prem would also come and tell me that an important person was in town and you should go to see him. The person was Swami Satchitanand not the yoga teacher known in America but the philosopher and big mayavadi preacher who lived in Bombay. His Divine Grace had taken many morning walks with him and also met him several times in Bombay. There are many tapes of their discussions in the archives. This Swamiji was also a top adviser to Indira Gandhi as she accepted him to be her guru. He was in Houston for heart by-pass surgery and so I accepted and went with one devotee Gopal Acharya prabhu to meet him and bring His Holiness garlands and prasad from Shree Shree Nitai Chaitanya Chandra. He was just recovering and was able to walk a bit and stand up which he was when we came to the door of his room. “Maharaja,” I said, “We have come to see you because we heard that you are here in Houston and have just had such a serious surgery. We know you had a very nice friendship with Srila Prabhupada and have heard all of the discussion you had together over tape (actually these discussion were very heated debates, not friendly conversations). He was just overwhelmed that we had cared enough to come and visit him. He was all alone a stranger in a strange land and he just praised Srila Prabhupada to us of how he did such wonderful work in America and he told us, "You were previously all mad after drugs and now you are mad after Krishna. Much better Krishna, so much better." I knew this had been the right action, to have visited him, and I had Prem to thank for it. Krishna is sending us service all the time this time I was able to grasp some. Then after a few weeks he told me His Holiness the Dalai Lama is also coming please go see him. I said, "No, no interest. He's an atheist. We have no business with him." But I should have gone. That was one I didn't grasp. Prem though did but it was only as he passed by a friendly pranams. There was a small office on the ground floor of the temple and we used this to speak privately with people when they wanted I became like the man there on call all the time. And we always had prasad to offer all the guests a full meal if they liked. One young couple would visit for lunch everyday and gradually they both became full time devotees and are still there today: Pandava Vijaya and his very charming and sweet wife Sakuntala. Hridayananda Maharaja would visit often and we would usually find him at the university giving some talk and go to meet him and bring him to the temple. The GBC leader asked one day, "What does Hridayananda Maharaja eat when he comes here?" "Oh just temple prasad like all of us." "Really? He only eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everywhere else. He says the peanut is the dal, the bread is the chapatti, and the jelly is the chutney. It’s best he isn’t encouraged to come so much." This was a new policy: there were to be no gurus in the temple when he wasn’t around. I don’t remember Hridayananda coming back after that. In Houston I also helped Mukunda Datta with the deities and for a period was doing almost all of their service. Shree Shree Nitai Chaitanya Chandra are about four feet tall and have golden metal bodies. In the morning bathing them it was especially sweet, as we would make a paste of gopichandan clay and lemon juice to polish them. Appling the clay to their transcendental bodies was one of the sweetest memories of that time. I learned all the prayers for waking their Lordships offering them their articles of worship and the morning puja procures. I learned different mudras for beginning the worship and the proper purifications one performs in their worship and I preformed all of their aratis and cooked many of their offerings in between seeing guests coming to the temple. We also met with all the new age people in Houston at the time. Elizabeth Claire Prophet was preaching in Houston in those days. Now she has a big following. We went and hear her speak and saw that she was teaching prayers to Shiva and Christ all mixed together. I felt she had some influences from Yogananda's Self Realization Fellowship group, which she seemed to be copying. All of her teachings were based on the authority of the ascended masters and very vague. One older lady who was a regular visitor took me and asked me what are they talking about? They don’t have a clear conception because they have the wrong authorities. I felt thankful studying Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam and to be connected to Srila Prabhupada and their Lordships. Surabhi Swami came from India and joined our zone for a time, which I was surprised to see. I went to Austin and saw him there. The temple had opened this very nice restaurant. I asked Surabhi why he had come, remembering that his last words to the GBC were not so sweet. He told me, "I thought of who was the person I disliked the most of all my godbrothers and it was him. So I decided to come and understand why and deal with it. Maybe I can change my feelings about him." After about a year’s time I remember seeing that our leader was also the GBC for China and Hong Kong jointly with Guru Kripa Swami, so I asked him what are you planning to do in China and Hong Kong and his statement was "absolutely nothing.” He gave me a look like he didn’t want to discuss it further. Janardan had built him very nice rooms in the temple and he was very angry at first. "You did this without telling me? Spending so much money!" He soon liked them very much, though. He would hold his darshans in these rooms, but would complain, "Now if I want to stop talking, I can’t. It isn’t easy to get the people out when I want to stop. They would always corner Srila Prabhupada like this!" He had his own view of Srila Prabhupada and it wasn’t the view I had. Over the years I just had to get away from him as he would always try to present his perception of Srila Prabhupada to me as the only one. I found his purport of Srila Prabhupada to be a very sour one. "There are two versions of Srila Prabhupada," He would tell me. "The one within his books and the one I saw before me. The Srila Prabhupada within the books was a more less strict Prabhupada and the one I knew was very hard, very strict.” I would think, “On you, maybe. His Divine Grace was not hard on every one.” Of course, I didn’t say anything aloud, as one was never able to disagree with this leader. If one had some thing to say to him, it had to be sent in a letter, to which he would always reply. Verbally, it was impossible and that’s the way he wanted it. In writing, he was very nice but in person he was hard and strict just as his perception of Srila Prabhupada had been. This was my perception of him. "Keep them sleep-deprived; it makes them humble," was another one of his lines. If some one challenged him, he would respect him, praise him to others, and then have him thrown out some way or other. After Surabhi left his zone, he told me that one day this person told him, "I am expert at seeing a person’s weakness and psychologically breaking that person down, bit by bit." Surabhi answered, "But the problem is, after you break them down you don’t know how to put them back together again!" We thought then Maharaja is so strict we must be good to please him and Srila Prabhupada. Then he said to reduce the cost in the zone there should be no more flying back and forth to Houston and Dallas we were to only drive. It was a 20$ flight then. The next time he came to Houston, he had brought a mobile home for himself to travel back and forth in, not a ordinary one either, a top of the line version called a Bart which the devotees called the Mahabharata. He then kept changing his name. I want all the devotees to call me Goswami Maharaj. That lasted six months and after that it was “Srila Goswami” for another six months and then after that it was Srila Gurudeva, which I’m sure he’s still using. He had a photo made of himself in Jaipur on a lawn He and Bhagavan who did the same thing and from this photo he had printed hundreds of posters with his new name under it. It was to be his official guru poster. One very well-known British devotee who had been away from temple life for a few years had come to Houston. It’s best not to mention his name. It seemed that Janardan didn’t have anything to give this person to do at the time as so he was given the same service as I was engaged in. He had been in England and was one of the first devotees there at the time. And he told me stories of meeting John Lennon and how puffed up a person he was. He was an egomaniac. He was also friends with Laxmi Shankar the sister of Ravi Shankar and he was calling her asking her to come to Houston to sing and offer the money to the temple which would be a very good help for our small place. I tried to assist him but it wasn’t working out so well so I requested Janardan to be sent up to St Louis temple after some time. Janardan left the temple and went west before I left and without him there it wasn’t the same mood any more so I was happy to move on. After 1980, about April, I remember we did return and Ill tell that part as it comes up. What I am telling is just as I remember the time passing this is what I observed <h3>More experiences in St Louis temple</h3> The time that I arrived in St Louis temple I remember very well as it was 1980 we saw the new year in there. I was engaged in cooking with Chota Hari Das. I would also drive many hours alone into Kansas and Nebraska bringing books to the sankirtan devotees on the road. We learned to cook all kinds of milk sweets as then Their Lordships Nitai Gaura Nataraja were of many, many different kinds: srea, amrita, rubbery, srikan, burfy, sandesh, rasagula, gulub daily. These milk sweets took a very long time to prepare. Chota Hari Das prabhu was expert at all of them but as time went along he taught them to me also. The leader came to the temple New Year’s Day and the devotees all had this fear that a world war would come sooner or latter. He spoke about this to us about this when he came Its 1980 the war will come soon we must be prepared. There was this big kirtan when he arrived and we were all chanting his name as if he was His Divine Grace himself to assist in the continuing the movement into the future as if the departure of His Divine Grace hadn't slowed us down in the slightest. In the temple there was Dasarathsuta who was president and Gopijanavallabha who was to arrive with Surabhi Swami Maha Mantra Prabhu was also there from the old Radha Damodar Party; we had been new bhaktas together. Maha Mantra was our pujari always hardly sleeping he would fall asleep as he made the Lords Offering. "Hey Maha, wake up.He fell asleep again we would hear often. Then Maha dropped Lord Nitai today during the bathing! Maha was the kind of a prabhu who had this baby face and he would fold his hands and hang his head low sorry Maharaja. Maha Mantra was very pure he had no sensual desires it seemed he has always remained brahmachari still I have heard he is engaged in India today I last saw him in Bombay temple. The GBC leader and guru had the top floor of the temple for his quarters and there was this very nice brahmachari Gatpuka tending to the small Radha Damodara diets that the leader had found on Juhu beach. Gatpuka was also on our Radha Damodar TSKP and we were also new bhaktas together. The deities he was taking care which the leader had found were just over two inches high. He was doing this in the leaders’ room. One day we heard that Gatpuka had also dropped Radharani day during Their worship and he was just gone. I mean this person just disappeared. We never saw him again. When I mentioned to the leader what had happened to Gatpuka, he would just grumble he was a fool. What happened to him and how he left we never knew. Then this very strange philosophy was presented to us at morning class. I was within the temple kitchen making the milk sweets like every day and we were listening to the class over the loud speakers in the kitchen. Gopijanavallabha Swami was speaking. The class went something like this: "We all are thinking that we have some kind of relationship with Srila Prabhupada but how much actually time did we ever spend with His Divine Grace? As we really haven’t had any association directly with Srila Prabhupada, we really cannot say we have any relationship with him. This relationship is all in our imagination. Only those devotees that have spent time with Srila Prabhupada have real relationships. Here, the person who had spent the most time with Srila Prabhupada, even becoming his last secretary, is our leader. He is therefore the only one of us that has the relationship. If we want to have a relationship with Srila Prabhupada, it can only be made through the relationship we have with him.” This class was of course a lot more detailed. It went on for forty minutes or so, but this was the subject. As I was listening to this lecture, I turned to Chota and said, “This is really bogus, really off. What kind of nonsense is this? As if the relationship to the Spiritual Master had to be physical? If this were true, then Srila Prabhupada also had no relationship with his Guru Maharaj.” As we all knew Srila Prabhupada personally only met Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati a few brief times. We were quite surprised to hear Gopijanavallabha speaking like this. Just another class, I thought, and I didn’t think much of it. My mind was on the milk sweets we were preparing. We were still in the kitchen through prasad and as the temple geared more into their daily schedule Then Gopijanavallabha came into the kitchen. I noticed he had shaved his head very closely and had left razor marks on his scalp. He then took a van from the back parking lot behind the temple, which we could see from the kitchen windows. Maharaja didn’t come back after that class. Most of knew what he did. After a few days, our leader told us this person wouldn’t have blooped; he must be dead. And that’s what had happened. He was found in a lake it was winter and he had shot himself. There was no inquiry from ISKCON. No one asked anyone any questions and I seem to be the only one that still remembers what happened then. It is never spoken of? Gopi and Surabhi had been traveling together by that time. There were sales going with these records, which was a pure scam to make money and Gopi was put into leading this with Surabhi. It was said that he was waking up late and was in Maya, so he did this to himself. That was the full explanation from the older devotees about him. Now telling this story, one wonders why anyone would stay in such a situation. First, ISKCON is Srila Prabhupada, His Divine Grace’s, body. Somehow we had to make it work. Second, we were penniless and surrendered to making it work. Thirdly, we depended on Krishna to intervene and help us. Fourthly, we were still overlooking what Gopijanavallabha had been speaking about that morning, which had actually been the leaders demands. It hadn’t sunk in yet. We didn’t understand that it was the new policy. In the next few months in Chicago, he would be sent away from his zone and asked to stay in Shree Dham Mayapur as he was also saying the same things to all of his godbrothers even his guru godbrothers. He was the acharya whom had the relationship with Srila Prabhupada and everyone else were to follow him. By this time I had been transferred to the Chicago temple and we helped all the older devotees coming in get places and rooms to stay in the new temple there. It was a big powwow with all the big gun devotees as they were called then. H.H. Satsvarupa, Bhavananda, Jayapataka Swami, Kirtanananda, Bhagavan and a few others. Their meetings were all very closed, but when I brought them prasad they had finished up and were having kirtan with arms upraised. They vowed to make ISKCON the way it was when Srila Prabhupada had first begun it. They concluded that that leader could not initiate any more. Bhagavan took over his zone and the leader left. This only lasted a few weeks, though, and he and I were soon back in Houston again. We actually liked that leader personally. He was hard but at the same time could be very gentlemanly with a wry sense of humor. He was very, very good at speaking basic Krishna Consciousness and was able to get completely new people to join the temple almost after the first meeting. No one was as expert at speaking to the Indian people as he was and for these many reasons we saw him as spiritually strong person. He is highly intelligent and can impress so many by his appearance and manners in public. We were told that many leaders in the GM expected him to be Srila Prabhupada’s successor. He never chanted with the devotees, however, and after some time I was to understand he actually didn’t chant the holy name very much -- a few rounds, very few. He would be sitting at his desk in his room, and when we came in we would see him grab his bead bag and chant for a few moments before he started talking. When he came back to Houston, it was to be only for a short while as the GBC had ordered him to go to China. He asked me one day, “Are you still interested in doing service in Hong Kong?” I told him “Ever since I met you, I have always just requested that we have a very close relationship. (as I was thinking he had with Srila Prabhupada.) I would be very interested to go there.” Then he said he wasn’t sure yet. Maybe I could go to Fiji Islands or maybe to Hong Kong. Then he left, for Fiji I think, and he mailed me a letter from there, telling me to grow my hair and prepare to go to Hong Kong. I still have this letter with me. But it would still be a few months as he would be also going to Taiwan and Korea. I suggested that to understand the Asian people a bit, we should start free English classes in the temple for the Asian community. I also arranged by placing ads in Korean newspapers in Houston for translators to prepare some small books of Srila Prabhupada to be translated, but he rejected these translators. There were a few Vietnamese boys visiting the temple then one nice man name Tran With Tran’s help we had over a hundred persons all sign up for the classes and we were holding English Classes for them each night in the prasad room. When this leader returned he was really surprised that we had gotten so many Asians to come. They were just there for the English classes and so he told me we must at least get them to chant in kirtan, which to my surprise they all agreed and very happily chanted along. The Vietnamese people were not so much inclined to these classes and dropped out very quickly, but the Chinese all stayed and they were the ones we were trying to get to know any way so it worked out very well. With the friendships I made in these classes these friends helped us when we set up our temple in Taipei a few years later. One lady’s husband, Mr Wu Gou Ming, was a police officer in charge of the harbor in Keelong outside of Taipei. One day he came and really helped us when we had a very dangerous situation. Then one night, this very nice devotee Maha Shakti was visiting the temple and I was putting the deities to rest when I received a phone call. It was from an Indian lady and she told us that her husband was near to death and could we please come to the hospital to see him. Maha Shakti Prabhu agreed to assist me and I took the Tulasi leaves that had been placed on the Lord’s lotus feet and charanamrita water and a garland from their Lordships and a picture of Gopal Krishna with us to the hospital. When we saw the man, he was in coma and had the look of a man overwhelmed with the strength of the illness and he seemed to be really just about to leave his body. I wet the dried sandalwood paste on tulasi leaf and placed her on his head as I had seen done for His Divine Grace. Then we placed the garland from the deities around his head and poured the charanamrita water into his mouth and placed Shree Gopal Krishna’s picture over his head. As soon as this was done the nurse ran up to us and said something about infections and told us we must take off the garland. Oh, I was thinking, this poor man is really cursed. But thankfully she didn’t have us remove the tulasi leaf from his head. The nurse made us cut our visit short and so we left commenting that we had rarely ever seen a person as close to death as he. After about a week I was again working on the altar when another call came in and wasn’t able to take it. The message was from the same woman who told us that the man had passed away and would we please come to their home for kirtan. This time Mukunda Datta and I went there and we had kirtan and then I spoke to the family from the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita on how the soul is eternal and we must not lament after the soul leaves the body. They just sat and listened to me until I had preached to them for at least thirty minutes when they said, “But prabhu, our father isn’t dead yet!” “What? I was told that he had passed away. I’m so very sorry please forgive me!" “No. He is still in coma. We have asked you here to pray for him.” There were tears and ladies crying. I wanted to crawl under the floor. It was my life’s most embarassing moment They then wanted us to eat the food they had prepared and they told us that they were all meat eaters but since their father’s illness the whole family had given up all meat and had vowed never to eat meat again. Knowing that there must be a lot of karma in that food I still took as much as I could for them and so did Mukunda Dutta. They then offered us new cloth and we left. That night while putting the Lord to rest I looked at them and requested Them, "My dear Lord Nitai Chaitanya Chandra! Your Lordships know what has happened tonight. If You wish, could You please save that man.” I left Houston a few days later and went to Hong Kong, but I heard from Mukunda Maharaja that the man very shortly recovered completely from his illness. When he awoke, he wanted to eat meat again, but the family forbad him. They told him that it was a miracle he lived and that they would never eat meat again. They then placed Shree Gopal Krishna in their home as the house deity. Mukunda placed it in the ISKCON World Review and sent me the copy in Hong Kong.

<h3>More experiences in Houston temple</h3> Houston temple also had many nice festivals and we would hold them in the vacant lot on the side of the temple. The temple had acquired this huge pandal tent from India and hundreds of people would attend. One year a group of devotee came and we put on the Ramayan play, which was very well done, indeed, really well done. I went to many places in the Indian community inviting everyone to please attend the Ramayan and many persons did come. I even went to the Sikh Gurudwar and they were very surprised that I had come and that we were having Ramayan play. "You will have Ram Lila," they told me. "If it is true, every Sikh would want to come.” And they did. I stayed at the Gurudwar for bhajans and prasad. In India we would often stay at the Sikh Gurudwars and the ladies would make chapattis for us. We would give them the flour and after a few moments a huge stack of fresh hot chapattis would appear. With each festival I would print a small invitation with a picture of Lord Rama or Lord Krishna if it was Janmashtami time and mail them out to all the Indian members of the community, about five hundred or so flyers. It took a long while to do. I was doing this on the floor of the prasadam room while Tripurari and his book distributors, who were in town, were taking some prasad. Tripurari just gave me this sneer like, what a worthless waste of time you are. He was only into book distribution at the time and that was it. Dealing with the Indian community wasn’t what he saw as important. There was this nice life member named Prem who would always come about looking for me to tell his problems, of which he had a lot. His father was the former head of defense of India, he said, and his sister was to be married to a man from another family, also from high in the Indian government. The day of the wedding, the groom took his new wife into the temple of Goddess Durga and killed her in front of the deity. It was headline news for weeks, he told me. It was then that Prem left India and came to America Prem would also come and tell me that an important person was in town and you should go to see him. The person was Swami Satchitanand not the yoga teacher known in America but the philosopher and big mayavadi preacher who lived in Bombay. His Divine Grace had taken many morning walks with him and also met him several times in Bombay. There are many tapes of their discussions in the archives. This Swamiji was also a top adviser to Indira Gandhi as she accepted him to be her guru. He was in Houston for heart by-pass surgery and so I accepted and went with one devotee Gopal Acharya prabhu to meet him and bring His Holiness garlands and prasad from Shree Shree Nitai Chaitanya Chandra. He was just recovering and was able to walk a bit and stand up which he was when we came to the door of his room. “Maharaja,” I said, “We have come to see you because we heard that you are here in Houston and have just had such a serious surgery. We know you had a very nice friendship with Srila Prabhupada and have heard all of the discussion you had together over tape (actually these discussion were very heated debates, not friendly conversations). He was just overwhelmed that we had cared enough to come and visit him. He was all alone a stranger in a strange land and he just praised Srila Prabhupada to us of how he did such wonderful work in America and he told us, "You were previously all mad after drugs and now you are mad after Krishna. Much better Krishna, so much better." I knew this had been the right action, to have visited him, and I had Prem to thank for it. Krishna is sending us service all the time this time I was able to grasp some. Then after a few weeks he told me His Holiness the Dalai Lama is also coming please go see him. I said, "No, no interest. He's an atheist. We have no business with him." But I should have gone. That was one I didn't grasp. Prem though did but it was only as he passed by a friendly pranams. There was a small office on the ground floor of the temple and we used this to speak privately with people when they wanted I became like the man there on call all the time. And we always had prasad to offer all the guests a full meal if they liked. One young couple would visit for lunch everyday and gradually they both became full time devotees and are still there today: Pandava Vijaya and his very charming and sweet wife Sakuntala. Hridayananda Maharaja would visit often and we would usually find him at the university giving some talk and go to meet him and bring him to the temple. The GBC leader asked one day, "What does Hridayananda Maharaja eat when he comes here?" "Oh just temple prasad like all of us." "Really? He only eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everywhere else. He says the peanut is the dal, the bread is the chapatti, and the jelly is the chutney. It’s best he isn’t encouraged to come so much." This was a new policy: there were to be no gurus in the temple when he wasn’t around. I don’t remember Hridayananda coming back after that. In Houston I also helped Mukunda Datta with the deities and for a period was doing almost all of their service. Shree Shree Nitai Chaitanya Chandra are about four feet tall and have golden metal bodies. In the morning bathing them it was especially sweet, as we would make a paste of gopichandan clay and lemon juice to polish them. Appling the clay to their transcendental bodies was one of the sweetest memories of that time. I learned all the prayers for waking their Lordships offering them their articles of worship and the morning puja procures. I learned different mudras for beginning the worship and the proper purifications one performs in their worship and I preformed all of their aratis and cooked many of their offerings in between seeing guests coming to the temple. We also met with all the new age people in Houston at the time. Elizabeth Claire Prophet was preaching in Houston in those days. Now she has a big following. We went and hear her speak and saw that she was teaching prayers to Shiva and Christ all mixed together. I felt she had some influences from Yogananda's Self Realization Fellowship group, which she seemed to be copying. All of her teachings were based on the authority of the ascended masters and very vague. One older lady who was a regular visitor took me and asked me what are they talking about? They don’t have a clear conception because they have the wrong authorities. I felt thankful studying Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam and to be connected to Srila Prabhupada and their Lordships. Surabhi Swami came from India and joined our zone for a time, which I was surprised to see. I went to Austin and saw him there. The temple had opened this very nice restaurant. I asked Surabhi why he had come, remembering that his last words to the GBC were not so sweet. He told me, "I thought of who was the person I disliked the most of all my godbrothers and it was him. So I decided to come and understand why and deal with it. Maybe I can change my feelings about him." After about a year’s time I remember seeing that our leader was also the GBC for China and Hong Kong jointly with Guru Kripa Swami, so I asked him what are you planning to do in China and Hong Kong and his statement was "absolutely nothing.” He gave me a look like he didn’t want to discuss it further. Janardan had built him very nice rooms in the temple and he was very angry at first. "You did this without telling me? Spending so much money!" He soon liked them very much, though. He would hold his darshans in these rooms, but would complain, "Now if I want to stop talking, I can’t. It isn’t easy to get the people out when I want to stop. They would always corner Srila Prabhupada like this!" He had his own view of Srila Prabhupada and it wasn’t the view I had. Over the years I just had to get away from him as he would always try to present his perception of Srila Prabhupada to me as the only one. I found his purport of Srila Prabhupada to be a very sour one. "There are two versions of Srila Prabhupada," He would tell me. "The one within his books and the one I saw before me. The Srila Prabhupada within the books was a more less strict Prabhupada and the one I knew was very hard, very strict.” I would think, “On you, maybe. His Divine Grace was not hard on every one.” Of course, I didn’t say anything aloud, as one was never able to disagree with this leader. If one had some thing to say to him, it had to be sent in a letter, to which he would always reply. Verbally, it was impossible and that’s the way he wanted it. In writing, he was very nice but in person he was hard and strict just as his perception of Srila Prabhupada had been. This was my perception of him. "Keep them sleep-deprived; it makes them humble," was another one of his lines. If some one challenged him, he would respect him, praise him to others, and then have him thrown out some way or other. After Surabhi left his zone, he told me that one day this person told him, "I am expert at seeing a person’s weakness and psychologically breaking that person down, bit by bit." Surabhi answered, "But the problem is, after you break them down you don’t know how to put them back together again!" We thought then Maharaja is so strict we must be good to please him and Srila Prabhupada. Then he said to reduce the cost in the zone there should be no more flying back and forth to Houston and Dallas we were to only drive. It was a 20$ flight then. The next time he came to Houston, he had brought a mobile home for himself to travel back and forth in, not a ordinary one either, a top of the line version called a Bart which the devotees called the Mahabharata. He then kept changing his name. I want all the devotees to call me Goswami Maharaj. That lasted six months and after that it was “Srila Goswami” for another six months and then after that it was Srila Gurudeva, which I’m sure he’s still using. He had a photo made of himself in Jaipur on a lawn He and Bhagavan who did the same thing and from this photo he had printed hundreds of posters with his new name under it. It was to be his official guru poster. One very well-known British devotee who had been away from temple life for a few years had come to Houston. It’s best not to mention his name. It seemed that Janardan didn’t have anything to give this person to do at the time as so he was given the same service as I was engaged in. He had been in England and was one of the first devotees there at the time. And he told me stories of meeting John Lennon and how puffed up a person he was. He was an egomaniac. He was also friends with Laxmi Shankar the sister of Ravi Shankar and he was calling her asking her to come to Houston to sing and offer the money to the temple which would be a very good help for our small place. I tried to assist him but it wasn’t working out so well so I requested Janardan to be sent up to St Louis temple after some time. Janardan left the temple and went west before I left and without him there it wasn’t the same mood any more so I was happy to move on. After 1980, about April, I remember we did return and Ill tell that part as it comes up. What I am telling is just as I remember the time passing this is what I observed <h3>More experiences in St Louis temple</h3> The time that I arrived in St Louis temple I remember very well as it was 1980 we saw the new year in there. I was engaged in cooking with Chota Hari Das. I would also drive many hours alone into Kansas and Nebraska bringing books to the sankirtan devotees on the road. We learned to cook all kinds of milk sweets as then Their Lordships Nitai Gaura Nataraja were of many, many different kinds: srea, amrita, rubbery, srikan, burfy, sandesh, rasagula, gulub daily. These milk sweets took a very long time to prepare. Chota Hari Das prabhu was expert at all of them but as time went along he taught them to me also. The leader came to the temple New Year’s Day and the devotees all had this fear that a world war would come sooner or latter. He spoke about this to us about this when he came Its 1980 the war will come soon we must be prepared. There was this big kirtan when he arrived and we were all chanting his name as if he was His Divine Grace himself to assist in the continuing the movement into the future as if the departure of His Divine Grace hadn't slowed us down in the slightest. In the temple there was Dasarathsuta who was president and Gopijanavallabha who was to arrive with Surabhi Swami Maha Mantra Prabhu was also there from the old Radha Damodar Party; we had been new bhaktas together. Maha Mantra was our pujari always hardly sleeping he would fall asleep as he made the Lords Offering. "Hey Maha, wake up.He fell asleep again we would hear often. Then Maha dropped Lord Nitai today during the bathing! Maha was the kind of a prabhu who had this baby face and he would fold his hands and hang his head low sorry Maharaja. Maha Mantra was very pure he had no sensual desires it seemed he has always remained brahmachari still I have heard he is engaged in India today I last saw him in Bombay temple. The GBC leader and guru had the top floor of the temple for his quarters and there was this very nice brahmachari Gatpuka tending to the small Radha Damodara diets that the leader had found on Juhu beach. Gatpuka was also on our Radha Damodar TSKP and we were also new bhaktas together. The deities he was taking care which the leader had found were just over two inches high. He was doing this in the leaders’ room. One day we heard that Gatpuka had also dropped Radharani day during Their worship and he was just gone. I mean this person just disappeared. We never saw him again. When I mentioned to the leader what had happened to Gatpuka, he would just grumble he was a fool. What happened to him and how he left we never knew. Then this very strange philosophy was presented to us at morning class. I was within the temple kitchen making the milk sweets like every day and we were listening to the class over the loud speakers in the kitchen. Gopijanavallabha Swami was speaking. The class went something like this: "We all are thinking that we have some kind of relationship with Srila Prabhupada but how much actually time did we ever spend with His Divine Grace? As we really haven’t had any association directly with Srila Prabhupada, we really cannot say we have any relationship with him. This relationship is all in our imagination. Only those devotees that have spent time with Srila Prabhupada have real relationships. Here, the person who had spent the most time with Srila Prabhupada, even becoming his last secretary, is our leader. He is therefore the only one of us that has the relationship. If we want to have a relationship with Srila Prabhupada, it can only be made through the relationship we have with him.” This class was of course a lot more detailed. It went on for forty minutes or so, but this was the subject. As I was listening to this lecture, I turned to Chota and said, “This is really bogus, really off. What kind of nonsense is this? As if the relationship to the Spiritual Master had to be physical? If this were true, then Srila Prabhupada also had no relationship with his Guru Maharaj.” As we all knew Srila Prabhupada personally only met Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati a few brief times. We were quite surprised to hear Gopijanavallabha speaking like this. Just another class, I thought, and I didn’t think much of it. My mind was on the milk sweets we were preparing. We were still in the kitchen through prasad and as the temple geared more into their daily schedule Then Gopijanavallabha came into the kitchen. I noticed he had shaved his head very closely and had left razor marks on his scalp. He then took a van from the back parking lot behind the temple, which we could see from the kitchen windows. Maharaja didn’t come back after that class. Most of knew what he did. After a few days, our leader told us this person wouldn’t have blooped; he must be dead. And that’s what had happened. He was found in a lake it was winter and he had shot himself. There was no inquiry from ISKCON. No one asked anyone any questions and I seem to be the only one that still remembers what happened then. It is never spoken of? Gopi and Surabhi had been traveling together by that time. There were sales going with these records, which was a pure scam to make money and Gopi was put into leading this with Surabhi. It was said that he was waking up late and was in Maya, so he did this to himself. That was the full explanation from the older devotees about him. Now telling this story, one wonders why anyone would stay in such a situation. First, ISKCON is Srila Prabhupada, His Divine Grace’s, body. Somehow we had to make it work. Second, we were penniless and surrendered to making it work. Thirdly, we depended on Krishna to intervene and help us. Fourthly, we were still overlooking what Gopijanavallabha had been speaking about that morning, which had actually been the leaders demands. It hadn’t sunk in yet. We didn’t understand that it was the new policy. In the next few months in Chicago, he would be sent away from his zone and asked to stay in Shree Dham Mayapur as he was also saying the same things to all of his godbrothers even his guru godbrothers. He was the acharya whom had the relationship with Srila Prabhupada and everyone else were to follow him. By this time I had been transferred to the Chicago temple and we helped all the older devotees coming in get places and rooms to stay in the new temple there. It was a big powwow with all the big gun devotees as they were called then. H.H. Satsvarupa, Bhavananda, Jayapataka Swami, Kirtanananda, Bhagavan and a few others. Their meetings were all very closed, but when I brought them prasad they had finished up and were having kirtan with arms upraised. They vowed to make ISKCON the way it was when Srila Prabhupada had first begun it. They concluded that that leader could not initiate any more. Bhagavan took over his zone and the leader left. This only lasted a few weeks, though, and he and I were soon back in Houston again. We actually liked that leader personally. He was hard but at the same time could be very gentlemanly with a wry sense of humor. He was very, very good at speaking basic Krishna Consciousness and was able to get completely new people to join the temple almost after the first meeting. No one was as expert at speaking to the Indian people as he was and for these many reasons we saw him as spiritually strong person. He is highly intelligent and can impress so many by his appearance and manners in public. We were told that many leaders in the GM expected him to be Srila Prabhupada’s successor. He never chanted with the devotees, however, and after some time I was to understand he actually didn’t chant the holy name very much -- a few rounds, very few. He would be sitting at his desk in his room, and when we came in we would see him grab his bead bag and chant for a few moments before he started talking. When he came back to Houston, it was to be only for a short while as the GBC had ordered him to go to China. He asked me one day, “Are you still interested in doing service in Hong Kong?” I told him “Ever since I met you, I have always just requested that we have a very close relationship. (as I was thinking he had with Srila Prabhupada.) I would be very interested to go there.” Then he said he wasn’t sure yet. Maybe I could go to Fiji Islands or maybe to Hong Kong. Then he left, for Fiji I think, and he mailed me a letter from there, telling me to grow my hair and prepare to go to Hong Kong. I still have this letter with me. But it would still be a few months as he would be also going to Taiwan and Korea. I suggested that to understand the Asian people a bit, we should start free English classes in the temple for the Asian community. I also arranged by placing ads in Korean newspapers in Houston for translators to prepare some small books of Srila Prabhupada to be translated, but he rejected these translators. There were a few Vietnamese boys visiting the temple then one nice man name Tran With Tran’s help we had over a hundred persons all sign up for the classes and we were holding English Classes for them each night in the prasad room. When this leader returned he was really surprised that we had gotten so many Asians to come. They were just there for the English classes and so he told me we must at least get them to chant in kirtan, which to my surprise they all agreed and very happily chanted along. The Vietnamese people were not so much inclined to these classes and dropped out very quickly, but the Chinese all stayed and they were the ones we were trying to get to know any way so it worked out very well. With the friendships I made in these classes these friends helped us when we set up our temple in Taipei a few years later. One lady’s husband, Mr Wu Gou Ming, was a police officer in charge of the harbor in Keelong outside of Taipei. One day he came and really helped us when we had a very dangerous situation. Then one night, this very nice devotee Maha Shakti was visiting the temple and I was putting the deities to rest when I received a phone call. It was from an Indian lady and she told us that her husband was near to death and could we please come to the hospital to see him. Maha Shakti Prabhu agreed to assist me and I took the Tulasi leaves that had been placed on the Lord’s lotus feet and charanamrita water and a garland from their Lordships and a picture of Gopal Krishna with us to the hospital. When we saw the man, he was in coma and had the look of a man overwhelmed with the strength of the illness and he seemed to be really just about to leave his body. I wet the dried sandalwood paste on tulasi leaf and placed her on his head as I had seen done for His Divine Grace. Then we placed the garland from the deities around his head and poured the charanamrita water into his mouth and placed Shree Gopal Krishna’s picture over his head. As soon as this was done the nurse ran up to us and said something about infections and told us we must take off the garland. Oh, I was thinking, this poor man is really cursed. But thankfully she didn’t have us remove the tulasi leaf from his head. The nurse made us cut our visit short and so we left commenting that we had rarely ever seen a person as close to death as he. After about a week I was again working on the altar when another call came in and wasn’t able to take it. The message was from the same woman who told us that the man had passed away and would we please come to their home for kirtan. This time Mukunda Datta and I went there and we had kirtan and then I spoke to the family from the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita on how the soul is eternal and we must not lament after the soul leaves the body. They just sat and listened to me until I had preached to them for at least thirty minutes when they said, “But prabhu, our father isn’t dead yet!” “What? I was told that he had passed away. I’m so very sorry please forgive me!" “No. He is still in coma. We have asked you here to pray for him.” There were tears and ladies crying. I wanted to crawl under the floor. It was my life’s most embarassing moment They then wanted us to eat the food they had prepared and they told us that they were all meat eaters but since their father’s illness the whole family had given up all meat and had vowed never to eat meat again. Knowing that there must be a lot of karma in that food I still took as much as I could for them and so did Mukunda Dutta. They then offered us new cloth and we left. That night while putting the Lord to rest I looked at them and requested Them, "My dear Lord Nitai Chaitanya Chandra! Your Lordships know what has happened tonight. If You wish, could You please save that man.” I left Houston a few days later and went to Hong Kong, but I heard from Mukunda Maharaja that the man very shortly recovered completely from his illness. When he awoke, he wanted to eat meat again, but the family forbad him. They told him that it was a miracle he lived and that they would never eat meat again. They then placed Shree Gopal Krishna in their home as the house deity. Mukunda placed it in the ISKCON World Review and sent me the copy in Hong Kong.