Damodara Das

Dear Srila Prabhupada –

You are the one I pronounce prayers to three times daily and offer food to and dedicate my life too although imperfectly.
You are the one who can unbuckle the straight jacket of my karma and liberate me to a life of holy sanity.
You are the one who always smiled at me whenever we met even though I deserved a good thrashing.
You are the one who sent me to Washington DC and who sustained me as I gave your message to members of Congress.
You are the one who is forever my guiding light and heart opener who plucked me out of the muck of my tendencies.
You are the one who told the BTG staff to get out of our stuffy office and hit the streets with the sparkling Holy Name.
You are the one who wrote me letters that instructed me and sustained me by ever wishing me well.
You are the one who in the early months sat on a makeshift Seat of Vyas and fearlessly administered the straight sauce.
You are the one who sold me your Srimad Bhagwatam 3-volume set which yanked me off my Buddhist train of thought.
You are the one whose 3 Bhagwatams I worship today on my desk altar between the Jagannaths and Radha Krishna.
You are the one whose life sustaining quotes I post every day on two Facebook devotee groups.
You are the one who kindly named DC’s uninstalled bell metal murtis Radha Damodar before they left for the traveling party.
You are the one who then gave us ISKCON’s first Krishna murti Madan Mohan to be joined by a Radharani of your design.
You are the one who is an ocean of mercy and no one can estimate the depth of your inconceivable kindness.
You are the one I left one time but you brought me back and I pray I stay with you forever.
You are the one who even while I was away for four months was always my reference marker and guidepost.
You are the one who gives us all we need to know in your books if only we have the patience to unpack the secrets.
You are the one whose spoken words even in recordings are like honey drops of nectar for the heart.
You are the one who invites us all to sail away with you to the far bank of the River Viraja where pure souls await.
You are the one whose ISKCON is only 56 years old and who knows how much the future will proclaim your greatness.
You are the one who surely stands in the firmament along with Jesus and Buddha as a great liberator.
You are the one who wore a ring given to you by someone so that they would always be in Krishna’s service.
You are the one who was expert in everything as the occasion required a Philosopher a Cook a diligent Treasurer.
You are the one whose instruction to chant Hare Krishna 24 hours daily is embedded in my soul as the rule of my life.
You are the one who wrote me that “English translation of prayers is good” but I still say them as you did.
You are the one who sat under a tree on October 16, 1966 and opened a path for me to an infinite world.
You are the one whose chanting that day gave me a crazy vision that I was riding up an infinite silver ramp.
You are the one whose chanting Hare Krishna made me chant too on an upward ride to ever increasing bliss.
You are the one whose disciple Hayagriva that day gave me a leaflet that said I could Stay High Forever.
You are the one in Tompkins Square Park who gave us a political force that I saw liberating the cosmos.
You are the one whose politics went far beyond the War Resisters League or Liberation Magazine or Dellinger or McReynolds.
You are the one who was the star of my movies and made my camera into an instrument as good as Ganesh’s pen.
You are the one who returned from San Francisco in April 1967 to our airport welcome as seen in my movie “Vaishnavas.”
You are the one who was welcomed by a big crowd including the health food store owner lady we called Mother Nature.
You are the one who was so pleased that we had built you a proper though very simple Vyasasan in your absence.
You are the one who recuperated from your stroke in Long Branch NJ but didn’t stop instructing us how to expand ISKCON.
You are the one who had us wear little Jagannaths on a string around our necks.
You are the one who said my little movie was “very nice” but I noticed you closed your deities’ curtains before I showed it.
You are the one who graciously let me film you the day before you left New York and we feared we’d never see you again.
You are the one who sat on your little space in the rear court building of 26 Second Avenue as I made “Swamiji.”
You are the one who is an ideal subject for meditation as you chant, read, eat, and give instructions in that movie.
You are the one who in “Gurudev” was welcomed at Kennedy Airport in 1969 by an even larger crowd of dancing disciples.
You are the one who made us all leap in ecstasy when you got up and danced with us there.
You are the one who then returned to your apartment at 26 Second Avenue and called it “my old home.”
You are the one who lectured at the 61 Second Avenue temple which used to be P. Blechman and Sons tuxedo rental parlor.
You are the one who I filmed in “Paramhansa” benedicting Boston and Montreal with your angelic presence.
You are the one who waved to me smiling as I bowed down to you while filming you leaving your Montreal apartment.
You are the one who waved to me again as I filmed you at the Montreal airport, thus ensuring my eternal bond to you.
You are the one who did your morning walk on city streets with Jadurani and Goursundar looking every moment the King of Boston.
You are the one who presided at the Glenville Avenue temple in Allston in front of the partition I built with my Dad’s help.
You are the one who thus engaged my father in Krishna’s service by your holy mercy.
You are the one who consented to be in “The Full Nectarine” a short movie by Nayana Bhiram and myself.
You are the one who thereby told a group of devotees and local children about Lord Chaitanya’s taking sannyas.
You are the one whose transcendent presence there in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens made us call it Brooklyn Brindaban.
You are the one whose expansive spirit guided me as I served at Back To Godhead as art director and article writer.
You are the one who saved me I’m sure from destroying myself with my clever fabrications and ingenious degradations.
You are the one to whom I owe any continued propriety or sensibility in my life.
You are the one who said “Everything is Person” and thus obliterated the feeble philosophies of materialists.
You are the one who thus opened a view of the cosmos as composed not of dead stuff but of conscious entities everywhere.
You are the one who rides on the front of the Jagannath cart like a stalwart sea captain braving the storms of Kali Yuga.
You are the one who is our Hero and Deliverer, our Priest and Potentate, yes for my money the King of the World.
You are the one who is always my best friend even though I have denied you three times and even more than that.
You are the one whose mercy reaches down even to an idiot like me who wallows in the mud of self-importance.
You are the one who beckons us home, a beacon of hope and glory for all sentient beings, including me,

a lame man stumbling to your lotus feet, Damodara Das

“Simply chant Hare Krishna and your life will be sublime.”

His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami is my eternal spiritual master.

“If listeners aren’t carried away to heaven I’m failing.”

Composer/musician Young took me to a place of vibrant energy and peacefulness.

Stan no longer exists as an individual.
Now the universe is the individual.
He’s part of it.
A person can only be understood
in universal terms.

Personal situations no longer exist.
There are only interpersonal situations.

Humans must submit to Nature
or live in lonely misery.

Eternity is love, and all events are
eternally simultaneous acts of love.

We see what we think we see.

To make a work of art the artist must
necessarily stand apart from life,
intimately involved with death.

Film maker Brakhage was my hero at the time. These were my comments about his work.

I have been arrested by the police twice –
both times for practicing civil disobedience.
First, in February 1966, along with other
members of the War Resisters League, I sat
down in the street at the intersection of
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in New York
City. Second, In the spring of 1970, I was
singing – performing Sankirtan – along with
other Krishna devotees on the sidewalk
near the corner of M Street and Wisconsin
Avenue in Washington DC. In the first
instance our group was jailed (briefly). In
the second instance I went by myself
(also briefly). In the four years between
the two arrests I had decided, as Srila
Prabhupad has written, that Sankirtan is
“civil disobedience for the right cause.”

Prayers to Krishna from Skandha Ten of the Shrimad Bhagavata Purana

10.3.13 Prayer of Vasudeva

Now I completely understand Your nature.
You are the Supreme Person, beyond matter.
You are absolute understanding-and-bliss
in its true form, the all-seeing intelligence.

10.10.29 Prayer of Nalakuvera and Manigriva

Krishna, Krishna, O Great Yogi,
You are the original Supreme Person,
both manifest and unmanifest.
Brahmins know You as the form of this universe.

10.14.23 Prayer of Brahma

You are the One, the Primeval Person,
the self-illuminating truth, endless and beginningless,
eternal, indestructible, full of bliss, spotless,
perfect, incomparable, the Nectar beyond all knowing.

10.16.39 Prayer of the Nagapatnis

We bow to the Possessor of all riches,
to the Person who is the Great Soul,
to the shelter and origin of the world,
to the transcendental Supreme Soul.

10.27.19 Prayer of Mother Surabhi

Krishna, Krishna, O Great Yogi,
O very Soul and Origin of the cosmos,
You exist as Master of the worlds
and as our Master, O infallible one.

10.34.16 Prayer of Sudarshana

O God, Great Yogi,
Great Person, Lord of the pure,
Ruler of the rulers of all worlds,
I surrender, take command of me.

10.41.16 Prayer of Akrura

O God of gods, Master of the universe,
who purify those who hear about you and praise You,
O best of the Yadus, subject of the best verses,
Shelter of the people, I bow to You.

10.56.6 Prayer of the Dvarakavasis

Narayana, we bow to You,
holder of the conch,disc, and club,
lotus-eyed Damodara, Govinda,
son of the Yadus!

It don’t make no difference one way or another.
Every gal’s my sister. Every guy’s my brother.
Every land’s my nation. Every star’s my home.
My true habitation is in the sound of OM.
OM is every little thing. And OM is number one.
When you drone it, it will sing of better things to come.
Just a sound, you might say. But in those decibels,
spirit children laugh and play and Krishna casts a spell.
Krishna’s tunes from His flute make universes dance.
Offer Him a piece of fruit. Don’t wait. Don’t miss your chance.
Give Him love. He’ll respond with a love you’ve never known.
That’s what you’ll be living on when you live inside the OM!

When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (b. 1486) wanted to be initiated into sannyas, the order of renunciates, he chose as his guru Keshava Bharati, who was a devotee of Lord Shiva. That was unusual because Chaitanya was a devotee of Lord Krishna.

In fact his followers accept Chaitanya as an incarnation of Krishna. We can find an explanation for his choice of sannyas guru in the pastimes of Krishna.

In a book by Jiva Goswami (b. 1513), Gopal-campu (Uttara-campu 8.10) we read:

“The young brothers Krishna and Balaram decided to go to a teacher and accept him as their guru. They said … ‘The best guru would be a person who is fixed in Brahman and worships Shiva … The great soul Sandipani of a dynasty from Kashi worships Shiva … he lives in Avanti, a place emanating happiness and near a Shiva temple. We should go there.'”

So Chaitanya was reprising his decision during his earlier Krishna pastimes to take initiation from a Shiva devotee. Moreover, we read in the book Gaura-ganoddesa-dipika by Kavi Karnapura (b. 1527) that Chaitanya’s sannyas guru Keshava Bharati was indeed a reincarnation of Krishna’s guru Sandipani Muni.

Ordinarily Krishna devotees and Shiva devotees go their separate ways. But Lord Krishna / Lord Chaitanya himself saw fit to bridge the gap. In doing so, he did not alter his personalist message to conform to the Shiva tradition’s impersonal one. Still, he honored the saint from a different teaching even to the extent of taking him as his initiating guru.

If all religious practitioners could adopt that ecumenical spirit, the world would be spared so much trouble.

The rhetoric of spirituality is constructed from a priori statements.
Logic cannot reach to the transcendental autocrat, Bhakti Siddhanta says.
The imago dei stands on its own, as does any other quality of the Deity.
It is not an inference. It is a fact, Bhakti Vedanta says.
Talk of God is more poetry than philosophy.
It is a description of a pre-established state of affairs.
The soul of any individual person exists in that realm and can perceive it.
Atoms that cover the soul or ideas that do likewise are of limited help.
The spiritualist may fashion metaphors from matter to analogize.
But that only gives the impression that religion is an ascending process.
In truth we cannot climb up a ladder to God.
God comes down to us as He is.
The picture of God, the “vision” if you will, awakens the soul.
From then on the soul must battle against body and mind to assert itself.
Ultimately aesthetics carries the day.
God’s body is beautiful and is the essence of beauty.
The spiritual world is a real place and we are essentially part of it.
That is an a priori statement and has its proof in direct experience.
These truths are self evident, the US Constitution says.
Just as a nation is founded on independent facts, so is spirituality.
But of course that’s an analogy and is of limited usefulness.
Direct contact of the soul with God does the trick.
This is accomplished by direct contact with a soul surrendered to God.
Any sincere aspirant will sympathetically vibrate with that pure one.
The pure devotee of God reflects the imago dei.
That person has no purpose other than serving the Original Person.
Association with a pure devotee is the doorway to God.
Coexistent with that person is a method of worship.
The person and the activity of the person come as a unit.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is such a person.
He comes to us packaged together with the worship of God’s Name.
To chant names of God is a priori to be in the spiritual world.
That statement stands on its own.
Experience, not logic, is its proof.
It is a fact.

Snatch the moment of devotion.
Catch it and hold it day and night
as a shield against the invasions
of illusions and false egos
that offer you poisoned apples.
Live inside that moment so it’s
not fleeting but cultivated like
a vigorous orchard of divinity
whose fruit nourishes your soul.