Jagat

Since my visa extension was refused I have been undergoing something of a revisiting of my devotional past--visiting the seven temples, seeing an old Nabadwip friend at Gokulananda. Then on Thursday going to Iskcon for Vyasa Puja. It has been a bit like a palimpsest -- scraping off layers to see what was there below. So going to Iskcon represents the beginnings of my life as a Vaishnava, and since for better or worse I am still in this game, Srila Prabhupada remains my guru. I heard several teary-eyed testimonials read by Brahmananda Prabhu from a published volume, as well as others given by a number of other Prabhupada disciples who were present. They recounted many stories of amazing achievements by young and inexperienced Prabhupada disciples, such as Gunarnava Das, who somehow during Prabhupada's presence were endowed with almost superhuman capabilities to achieve tasks like the building of the Vrindavan temple. Indeed, it is almost impossible for anyone who lived through t...

I am occasionally asked to speak on bhakti here at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama. Interestingly, Swami Veda has been giving daily classes on the Gita's sthita-prajña-lakṣaṇam (i.e. 2.54-72), using Shankara and Madhusudan Saraswati's commentaries. One open secret here in this tradition is that Swami Rama himself was (or claimed to be) a reincarnation of this Madhusudan. Madhusudan Saraswati was an interesting personality whose scholarship was so multifaceted that there were few areas of traditional knowledge that he had not mastered. According to the information at hand, his forefathers escaped north India in the 12th century after the Muslim conquest and began by settling in Nabadwip. Later they moved to Faridpur in present-day Bangladesh. Madhusudan became renounced early in life and went to Benares to study Mimamsa. Some traditions have it that he first went to Nabadwip to study Navya-nyaya and there imbibed bhakti in the Chaitanyaite tradition. He was born after Chaitanya ...

Renowned kirtaniya Vaiyasaki Das came to Rishikesh for a few days in November. We hadn't seen each other for many years and he actually did not know me as Jagadananda, but in my former incarnation as Hiranyagarbha. Vaiyasaki had been in Toronto in the early 70's, where he joined a little after me. We later knew each other in Mayapur as he was part of the India BBT party, which he left to spend three years in Bangladesh. I had been writing to him in somewhat excited anticipation of his arrival here, but he did not really know who I was. As he is a world-wide figure, chanting and doing kirtan in every corner of the globe, he is probably used to that kind of thing. If you look at the Facebook pages of him and his wife Kaisori , you will get an idea of their jet-setting ways. He has been invited to Rishikesh several times by the disciples of Swami Rama, since, as the story goes, when Swami Rama heard Vaiyasaki's 1983 recording, "Transcendence," he was quite impressed....

I received several warnings from devotee friends about coming here to Rishikesh, to stay in a "Mayavadi" ashram. We are generally very protective of our faith, down to its most arcane details, and the idea that it could be challenged is fearful. Over the years, I suppose my faith has suffered as many challenges as anyone's faith ever could have, and this may have inoculated me to the fear of Mayavada. Whether that is good or not remains to be seen. Certainly I am using the opportunity given me here to look into yoga philosophy a little more seriously than I have in the past, but not with a view to "defeat" it. As a matter of fact, the "defeating" mode is not highly approved in the Gita. The other night, I had supper with Swami Veda along with a number of his close disciples. The topics discussed were many. One thing that he said, perhaps in relation to the loss of innocence, was that it took him a long time to realize that not everyone was engaged ...