Memories from April 26


2018

Today is Hit Harivanshji's appearance day. What a good fortune to live in Vrindavan. I am just sitting here in the VT office and new neighbors are celebrating his appearance. It seems we have a Radha Vallabhi family moving in next door.


2011

It may be asked that since direct perception in the philosophy of logic requires close contact between a perceiver’s senses and the object perceived (Gotama’s Nyāya-sūtra 1), how can a yogi perceive the subtle, the hidden or the distant beyond such contact? The answer is that the internal sense (antaḥ-karaṇa) is undivided and all-pervading. It is in close contact with all realities at all times.

āgamenānumānena dhyānābhyāsa-rasena ca | 
tridhā prakalpayan prajñāṁ labhate yogam uttamam ||

By authority (āgama) and by logic (anumāna),
and through enjoyment of the practice (abhyāsa) of meditation (dhyāna); 
Cultivating wisdom in these three ways, 
One gains the highest yoga.
(Vyāsa-bhāṣya, YS 1.48)


2011

I must be an Indian, cause hot season is here and I like it. Of course my room is reasonably cool, but no AC.


2009

Poring over every word
like a sniffing dog in a minefield
sleeping when exhausted
waking groggy from too much tea
sweaty from the summer day 
or night... and repeat.


13 years ago (Actually posted on the blog in 2006 but written earlier) There is some explanation in the linked articles.
I spent all those nights in Radha Kund;
I had one long dream of Vrindavan.

And I awoke, still hearing shukas and sharis,
watching the sunlight waft over
the smooth and spotless sheets
of my North American bed.

I thought to myself:
Surely Radha and Krishna have left me a garland;
surely there is a legacy of prema left by this dream
that will embrace this world,
that will envelop it like a veil.

But as I look again,
I see that I was given
a strange gift--a sword,
which runs me through,
which beheads my world,
which punctures all
my colored balloons.

I am exposed: Am I unable
to carry the sword of conviction,
though like a beast of burden,
my back has been made strong
from bearing the bricks
of so many sweet theories?

Unlike Rabindranath's maid,
my yes is not so ready made.

IV. The Bricks of Sweet Theories

The flower garland and the sword
From safety to the brink,
It’s all a case of binaries,
For that is how we think.

The flower garland and the sword,
As old as yang and yin:
One is all about going out,
The other, going in.

Ah, but it’s not such a simple thing
This business of yang and yin,
It’s not as clear as black and white,
Or piety and sin.

Brahma is the God without,
Atma, God within.
Women look for Brahma God,
The Atma is for men.

But that’s because what each one owns
Is the other’s secret need,
The man has always held the sword,
While woman holds the seed.



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