Sort of like those BTG stories, this is part two of my search for a life with soul or how I became involved in the Hare Krishna movement:
After much searching for answers to my spiritual questions and concerns, I began to think that maybe I'll never know - or not until I'm "dead (!)", as one priest told me. But most importantly was that despite my annoyance, and the fact that I went on a three year spree of hedonism and rebellion against materialistic society, making me the fear of good mothers for their children- I did not turn away from God. I like how Lester Burnham ("American Beauty") said it:
"It's hard to stay mad when there is so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me, like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
I was fortunate to land jobs in both the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the Alaskan wilderness- two places that invoke such appreciation. Then one day, standing by a stream where I was living in a tent on Alaskan soil, 30 miles from the nearest town, I put that feeling into a prayer. It was like, "I give up. You don't have to show Yourself...Hello?" But I remember most of all what I said at the end of that prayer, "I just want to spend the rest of my life thanking You."
I didn't know then that in the Vedic scripture (the Ramayana) the Lord says, "If one surrenders to Me sincerely saying, 'My Lord, from this day on I am fully surrendered unto You', I always give him protection. That is my vow", but about a week later my life started rapidly changing. My friends at work had to return home further north, so I decided to follow them. We lived in a small town outside of Anchorage. There I felt restless like never before, surrounded by a bunch of people who did not take life seriously. They seemed to only work all day and party most of the night. I filled my glass with soda pop or plain water and laughed at their jokes. I didn't want to smoke or drink anymore, and I was slow to start a job again. I started keeping a dream notebook, thinking maybe there'd be some insight there. Shortly afterward, I had a most amazing dream.
I don't remember having seen the Indian swami before*, but he appeared in my dream sitting cross-legged, and I heard him speak. His exact words were, "You should associate with these people."
Now in those days the word "associate" was not big in my vocabulary; I hardly knew the value of association, but then I looked around me in that dream and I noticed standing near a very long table laden with all sorts of food preparations, there were many people who were wearing what looked like long robes. One of them handed me a plate full of foodstuffs.
Next, I heard the swami say, in exact words, "You have a class", and at the conclusion of our meeting he said, "On Thursday."
But that was not the end of the dream. Suddenly I saw a person I knew from Anchorage. He was wearing his down coat, but it looked like something was stuffed underneath it. I angrily followed him thinking, "He's stealing something from these people!" I followed him up a long winding staircase and saw him disappear through a door at the top. When I opened the door, I found myself outside in broad daylight on a city sidewalk that had money scattered on it everywhere.
I don't remember now what day I had the dream, but I remember that it was on a Tuesday afternoon sometime afterwards (because I was listening to that song title by the Moody Blues on the radio) that I had an overwhelming urge to just run away from that place. Leaving most of my possessions behind I headed toward the nearest road and stuck my thumb out for a ride. The first man who drove by stopped and said, "Where you headed?"
"Anchorage."
"That's where I'm going," he said. We approached near the city when he asked, "Where to?"
"The airport", I had decided, because inside my coat pocket I was carrying a ticket to Hawaii that I had purchased before heading north, but with no clear idea when I would ever use it. And I told him this even though I didn't have a suitcase. I was feeling this utter detachment, and like a feather letting the wind carry it wherever it must, I was ready to let the universe take me wherever it was that I should be.
"I work at the airport", he said, and so there he dropped me off.
A few hours later, while I was waiting for my flight, I saw him transporting luggage. He stopped and asked me, "Are you alright?" I just nodded, dazed after having heard the song "Tuesday Afternoon" play a second time on the airport's loud speakers.
After some delay (long story), I finally found myself on a "Thursday" morning in the Honolulu airport where I got stopped by some Hare Krishna devotees. They gave me a book and asked for a donation.
At first I refused, but when I heard the airport loud speaker announce that they did not endorse these people's activities of "soliciting flowers (and books) for cash donations", it was like reverse psychology worked on me then; I just had to give them a donation. I thought about the old woman in the Bible who gave her last farthing and was blessed. "I hope to God something will come of this", I said to myself as I handed over whatever cash I could spare.
A woman devotee smiled at me and said, "Hi, my name is Sukhada. What's yours?"
I responded and asked, "What does 'Sukhada' mean?"
"'Sukhada' means 'happiness'."
Gosh, I remember so clearly how happy she looked to me. I'd never seen a person so effulgent in my life! She literally glowed.
The Bhagavad gita says, "The manifestation of the mode of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of the body are illuminated by knowledge."
In fact, all the devotees glowed, and I felt like they knew something very special and that I wanted in on their secret.
So, when they were leaving around noon I accepted their invitation to a vegetarian feast since it was "Thursday", Thanksgiving Day, 1979. They took me to Waikiki beach where, similar to my dream, I saw a long table spread with food preparations, and I saw people there wearing long robes that turned out to be Indian dress. They gave me my first bites of Krishna prasadam.
Later that day I went to their temple in Honolulu and was ushered to the main temple room. I followed the manner of the devotees I was with by bowing my head to the floor. When I looked up there was the Indian Swami from my dream!
Upon inquiry I discovered that he, Srila Prabhupada, had left our material vision in November 1977, so it was his lifelike deity form I was gazing at. Seeing him in that beautiful, still form, I then realized why in my dream his lips had not moved when he had spoken to me. And the following morning I attended my first "class" on the Srimad Bhagavatam, as had been predicted in my dream. Interestingly, the class was about the awesome transcendentalist, Sri Narada Muni, described in the first canto, and I was initiated with the name "Narada dasi", servant of Narada Muni, not long afterwards.
From that day forward I stayed at the temple and began daily chanting my sixteen rounds. Sadly, dreams of Srila Prabhupada afterwards until the time of my re-initiation by Jayapataka Swami in 2008 had been rare, but whenever they did occur, vivid personal exchanges, instructions, words of comfort and even chastisements took place which have sustained me throughout my life in ISKCON. In the meantime, I discovered that I can always find Prabhupada's association immediately by reading his books. As acarya Bhaktivinoda Thakur said:
"He reasons ill that Vaisnavas die, while living still in sound. A Vaisnava dies to live, and while living tries to spread the holy name around."
Oh, and I wanted to add what happened to the person who also appeared in that dream with the down coat. Well, my friends in Alaska did wonder what had happened to me, since I had suddenly taken off the day a big blizzard hit their town. I figured they would be worried, so I kindly called to say I was alright and I was in Hawaii. One of them arrived a short while later and stayed for a whole year at the temple, urging me to go back with him, but, as in the dream, this person had to finally leave because he was caught stealing.
And the money on the sidewalk that I also dreamed about? Well, one of my first services at the temple was to sell Srila Prabhupada's books (via tourist sales) on the bright and sunny Kalakau Avenue at Waikiki and collect cash donations.
Tuesday afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way.
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.
Something calls to me
The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh.
I'm looking at myself reflections of my mind.
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind.
So gently swaying through the fairyland of love
If you'll just come with me you'll see the beauty of
Tuesday afternoon
Tuesday afternoon.
-- lyrics from The Moody Blues
* More recently, after writing this article, my earliest recollection surfaced regarding how I may have encountered Srila Prabhupada, at least his picture, before the above described dream. I was maybe 12 years old and remember standing in the Stapleton International Airport in Denver because my mother got stopped by a devotee. I saw him sell her a copy of Bhagavad gita As It Is that she later left on a shelf in our dining room. I don't think she picked it up again, but I remember puzzling over the illustrations, especially the one of Krishna killing Kamsa. Perhaps this stuck in my mind because my father was a pacifist after living in concentration camps.
When I was 19, I began seeing Prabhupada's Bhagavad gita more and more often, in thrift shops and various places but made no connection that it was the same book on my Mom's shelf nor did I feel any special attraction for it. Then one day it was right in front of me on a coffee table of a Forest Service Office I worked for in Alaska. I leafed through it and read, "One should not sleep more than six hours daily. One who sleeps more than six hours out of twenty-four is certainly influenced by the mode of ignorance. A person in the mode of ignorance is lazy and prone to sleep a great deal. Such a person cannot perform yoga." I guess being born under Virgo influence, I was attracted to the practical advice towards self-improvement, enough to ask if I could borrow the book, but with no success.
Although I checked it out in a nearby library the next chance I got, i didn't get around to reading it, and ended up going back to the library several times to try and check it out again. Strangely, the (small town) library was always closed from then onward for renovations, and thus my hankering to see the book again greatly increased! Srimad Bhagavad gita As It Is, Srila Prabhupada's books ki jaya!
"It's hard to stay mad when there is so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me, like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
I was fortunate to land jobs in both the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the Alaskan wilderness- two places that invoke such appreciation. Then one day, standing by a stream where I was living in a tent on Alaskan soil, 30 miles from the nearest town, I put that feeling into a prayer. It was like, "I give up. You don't have to show Yourself...Hello?" But I remember most of all what I said at the end of that prayer, "I just want to spend the rest of my life thanking You."
I didn't know then that in the Vedic scripture (the Ramayana) the Lord says, "If one surrenders to Me sincerely saying, 'My Lord, from this day on I am fully surrendered unto You', I always give him protection. That is my vow", but about a week later my life started rapidly changing. My friends at work had to return home further north, so I decided to follow them. We lived in a small town outside of Anchorage. There I felt restless like never before, surrounded by a bunch of people who did not take life seriously. They seemed to only work all day and party most of the night. I filled my glass with soda pop or plain water and laughed at their jokes. I didn't want to smoke or drink anymore, and I was slow to start a job again. I started keeping a dream notebook, thinking maybe there'd be some insight there. Shortly afterward, I had a most amazing dream.
I don't remember having seen the Indian swami before*, but he appeared in my dream sitting cross-legged, and I heard him speak. His exact words were, "You should associate with these people."
Now in those days the word "associate" was not big in my vocabulary; I hardly knew the value of association, but then I looked around me in that dream and I noticed standing near a very long table laden with all sorts of food preparations, there were many people who were wearing what looked like long robes. One of them handed me a plate full of foodstuffs.
Next, I heard the swami say, in exact words, "You have a class", and at the conclusion of our meeting he said, "On Thursday."
But that was not the end of the dream. Suddenly I saw a person I knew from Anchorage. He was wearing his down coat, but it looked like something was stuffed underneath it. I angrily followed him thinking, "He's stealing something from these people!" I followed him up a long winding staircase and saw him disappear through a door at the top. When I opened the door, I found myself outside in broad daylight on a city sidewalk that had money scattered on it everywhere.
I don't remember now what day I had the dream, but I remember that it was on a Tuesday afternoon sometime afterwards (because I was listening to that song title by the Moody Blues on the radio) that I had an overwhelming urge to just run away from that place. Leaving most of my possessions behind I headed toward the nearest road and stuck my thumb out for a ride. The first man who drove by stopped and said, "Where you headed?"
"Anchorage."
"That's where I'm going," he said. We approached near the city when he asked, "Where to?"
"The airport", I had decided, because inside my coat pocket I was carrying a ticket to Hawaii that I had purchased before heading north, but with no clear idea when I would ever use it. And I told him this even though I didn't have a suitcase. I was feeling this utter detachment, and like a feather letting the wind carry it wherever it must, I was ready to let the universe take me wherever it was that I should be.
"I work at the airport", he said, and so there he dropped me off.
A few hours later, while I was waiting for my flight, I saw him transporting luggage. He stopped and asked me, "Are you alright?" I just nodded, dazed after having heard the song "Tuesday Afternoon" play a second time on the airport's loud speakers.
After some delay (long story), I finally found myself on a "Thursday" morning in the Honolulu airport where I got stopped by some Hare Krishna devotees. They gave me a book and asked for a donation.
At first I refused, but when I heard the airport loud speaker announce that they did not endorse these people's activities of "soliciting flowers (and books) for cash donations", it was like reverse psychology worked on me then; I just had to give them a donation. I thought about the old woman in the Bible who gave her last farthing and was blessed. "I hope to God something will come of this", I said to myself as I handed over whatever cash I could spare.
A woman devotee smiled at me and said, "Hi, my name is Sukhada. What's yours?"
I responded and asked, "What does 'Sukhada' mean?"
"'Sukhada' means 'happiness'."
Gosh, I remember so clearly how happy she looked to me. I'd never seen a person so effulgent in my life! She literally glowed.
The Bhagavad gita says, "The manifestation of the mode of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of the body are illuminated by knowledge."
In fact, all the devotees glowed, and I felt like they knew something very special and that I wanted in on their secret.
So, when they were leaving around noon I accepted their invitation to a vegetarian feast since it was "Thursday", Thanksgiving Day, 1979. They took me to Waikiki beach where, similar to my dream, I saw a long table spread with food preparations, and I saw people there wearing long robes that turned out to be Indian dress. They gave me my first bites of Krishna prasadam.
Later that day I went to their temple in Honolulu and was ushered to the main temple room. I followed the manner of the devotees I was with by bowing my head to the floor. When I looked up there was the Indian Swami from my dream!
Upon inquiry I discovered that he, Srila Prabhupada, had left our material vision in November 1977, so it was his lifelike deity form I was gazing at. Seeing him in that beautiful, still form, I then realized why in my dream his lips had not moved when he had spoken to me. And the following morning I attended my first "class" on the Srimad Bhagavatam, as had been predicted in my dream. Interestingly, the class was about the awesome transcendentalist, Sri Narada Muni, described in the first canto, and I was initiated with the name "Narada dasi", servant of Narada Muni, not long afterwards.
From that day forward I stayed at the temple and began daily chanting my sixteen rounds. Sadly, dreams of Srila Prabhupada afterwards until the time of my re-initiation by Jayapataka Swami in 2008 had been rare, but whenever they did occur, vivid personal exchanges, instructions, words of comfort and even chastisements took place which have sustained me throughout my life in ISKCON. In the meantime, I discovered that I can always find Prabhupada's association immediately by reading his books. As acarya Bhaktivinoda Thakur said:
"He reasons ill that Vaisnavas die, while living still in sound. A Vaisnava dies to live, and while living tries to spread the holy name around."
Oh, and I wanted to add what happened to the person who also appeared in that dream with the down coat. Well, my friends in Alaska did wonder what had happened to me, since I had suddenly taken off the day a big blizzard hit their town. I figured they would be worried, so I kindly called to say I was alright and I was in Hawaii. One of them arrived a short while later and stayed for a whole year at the temple, urging me to go back with him, but, as in the dream, this person had to finally leave because he was caught stealing.
And the money on the sidewalk that I also dreamed about? Well, one of my first services at the temple was to sell Srila Prabhupada's books (via tourist sales) on the bright and sunny Kalakau Avenue at Waikiki and collect cash donations.
Tuesday afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way.
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.
Something calls to me
The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh.
I'm looking at myself reflections of my mind.
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind.
So gently swaying through the fairyland of love
If you'll just come with me you'll see the beauty of
Tuesday afternoon
Tuesday afternoon.
-- lyrics from The Moody Blues
* More recently, after writing this article, my earliest recollection surfaced regarding how I may have encountered Srila Prabhupada, at least his picture, before the above described dream. I was maybe 12 years old and remember standing in the Stapleton International Airport in Denver because my mother got stopped by a devotee. I saw him sell her a copy of Bhagavad gita As It Is that she later left on a shelf in our dining room. I don't think she picked it up again, but I remember puzzling over the illustrations, especially the one of Krishna killing Kamsa. Perhaps this stuck in my mind because my father was a pacifist after living in concentration camps.
When I was 19, I began seeing Prabhupada's Bhagavad gita more and more often, in thrift shops and various places but made no connection that it was the same book on my Mom's shelf nor did I feel any special attraction for it. Then one day it was right in front of me on a coffee table of a Forest Service Office I worked for in Alaska. I leafed through it and read, "One should not sleep more than six hours daily. One who sleeps more than six hours out of twenty-four is certainly influenced by the mode of ignorance. A person in the mode of ignorance is lazy and prone to sleep a great deal. Such a person cannot perform yoga." I guess being born under Virgo influence, I was attracted to the practical advice towards self-improvement, enough to ask if I could borrow the book, but with no success.
Although I checked it out in a nearby library the next chance I got, i didn't get around to reading it, and ended up going back to the library several times to try and check it out again. Strangely, the (small town) library was always closed from then onward for renovations, and thus my hankering to see the book again greatly increased! Srimad Bhagavad gita As It Is, Srila Prabhupada's books ki jaya!