Month: September 2019

By 1968, Prabhupad’s initiates had opened a few new ISKCON branches. Here from my film Paramhansa we see His Divine Grace in Montreal and Boston.

In the early summer of 1967, Srila Prabhupad decided his recovery from a stroke would go better in the friendlier climate of India. His New York disciples were concerned that he might decide to stay there. So they asked me to film him on the morning before going to the airport. Then we’d have a semblance of his presence to meditate on. Here’s a series of portraits of our blessed guru taken from my film Swamiji. We see him in his apartment in the rear court building of 26 Second Avenue. As I was putting a new roll of Agfa 8mm film into my camera, he asked me to show him how the unique plastic spool was constructed and how it went in. I did so, and he said, “They think of everything”. I took that to mean we his students also had to think of everything in pushing on his movement of Krishna Consciousness.

I considered myself a film maker from 1961 to 1966. In addition to school projects and commercial jobs, I made several experimental shorts. Then I met Srila Prabhupad and my self-concept changed. I became his disciple. So for three years I trained my 8mm “home movie” camera on him. Vaishnavas in 1967 was my first effort. From that film I’m posting selected portraits of His Divine Grace.

Mahaprabhu Yugavatar
Gaura Hari Gaurasundar
Nimai Pandit Vishwambara
Sachinandan Radha Krishna

Jai Gopala Madan Mohan
Jai Govinda Gopinatha
Jai Keshava Radha Raman
Jai Madhava Jagannatha

Krishna Govinda
Shri Dayanidhi
Krishna Keshava
Mukunda Hari

Madanmohan Damodara
Giridhari Govinda
Radharaman Bhagavata
Sadgosvami Devata

Lalita Vishaka
Chitra Rangadevi
Indulekha Tungavidya
Champakalata Sudevi

Excerpt from an email to a friend many years ago.

The Gita is wonderful because the personal relationship between Krishna and Arjuna is so strong and multi-dimensional, and so loving. It’s wonderful when Arjuna complains to Krishna – “You say one thing, then you say the opposite. Will you please tell me which one is right!” And Krishna goes on being paradoxical anyway. Prabhupad was no different. We want to put him in a logical box, but he won’t stay put. Warring camps among his disciples wave quotes at each other. But Prabhupad is beyond us. He’s a “Vaikuntha man.” I don’t mean to say nobody can learn anything from him. But the first thing to learn is love. And the last, too.

This, from 1981, is the first of many manic outbursts during a long period of soul-searching.

The last electric tentacles thrash behind me.
A cool green mint breeze revitalizes my aura.
My human form with upraised arms a tuning fork
undulates in love for God.
In time the universities will turn into compost.
Even styrofoam will submit to molecular breakdown.
The Goddess will move upon the face of her waters.
Volcanoes will signal the angelic generation’s birth.
Now my unprotected feet stumble along the ley lines
as artless arms reach through clouds to make appeal
to the One who sleeps and yet is ever watchful
and has no reason to watch us except Love.
This cannot be stored inside the brain.
The heart’s the bowl to hold the holy rain.

Eternity is like a storybook.

Let me explain. A printed storybook is both single, simultaneous, and sequential.

First, the book considered as one volume , one whole entity, is a single event.

Then, when you open to any page, that page is also a single event, but there are many such events simultaneously present.

Finally, when you read the book as a narrative, the events now have a sequence – a past, a present, and a future.

Those are the three possibilities. They differ in how you see the book.

Eternity is like that. It contains an infinite number of events. You may choose to see eternity as a single event, a scattered collection of events, or a connected series of events.

In Sanskrit those three aspects of eternity – that is, of God – are called Brahman, Paramatman, and Bhagavan.

Brahman is God as an undifferentiated absolute.

Paramatman is God manifest separately within every soul and atom.

Bhagavan is God with an endlessly marvelous series of pastimes.

The pastimes of Bhagavan are accessible. By reading books like the Bhagavata Purana you can gradually enter into their eternity.

Margot Adler introduced this chant at a Unitarian gathering in the 1970s, singing it to a Native American rhythm.

Mother I can feel you under my feet
Mother I can hear your heart beat
Mother I can see you when the eagle flies
Mother will you take me higher

At times in my life I’ve repeated short “mantras” over and over again. It started when I was five. After 1966 it’s continued, along with chanting the Hare Krishna Mantra.

1946
There were thousands of them but there was only one!
1955
oowa wokka lokka chimba
1966
I have no idea.
1978
Sun shine down on me.
Please burn up my misery.
1982
vishnu bokh tao jehovah
ahuramazda manitou
dios butsu chaitanya
allah wakantanka jesu
1983
All is life and light and love,
and love loves loving love.
1984
I am the glory of God,
and God’s glory glorifies God.
1987
We’re walking to God,
we’re walking to God,
we’re walking to God today.
We’re walking to God,
we’re walking to God,
we’re walking to God to stay.
1988
O glory to God
1990
Put your hands up,
put your feet down,
put your heart in God.
1991
Mahaprabhu Yugavatar
Gaura Hari Gaurasundar
Nimai Pandit Vishwambara
Sachinandan Radha Krishna
1991
She He love me
1992
Oh, have nothing of yourself.
Oh, just observe.
And trust and serve.
1992
Glory in the glory of God.

“Whenever Billy Batson, famous boy newscaster, says the word ‘SHAZAM,’ he is miraculously changed into powerful Captain Marvel, the world’s mightiest mortal, who combines in his magnificent physique the powers of six of the mightiest heroes of all time!
Solomon…wisdom
Hercules…strength
Atlas…stamina
Zeus…power
Achilles…courage
Mercury…speed”

c 1949 Fawcett Publications, Inc.