Vol. 1, No. 03, December 1, 1966

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in Night;
But does a Human Form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day.

—William Blake

Our Society has been holding Kirtan at a number of places in the city. During November, we were at the Gate Theater on Sundays and at Judson Hall on Tuesday, the 15th. In December, and possibly longer, we’ll be at Film Maker’s Cinematheque every Sunday at 3 p.m. The address is 25 West 41st Street, near Sixth Avenue. Admission will be free. Please come and bring your friends.

Although Back To Godhead has been circulating satisfactorily, we’d like to hear more in the way of comment from our readers, so please consider this an open invitation to give us your opinion of our magazine, and the philosophy to which it is devoted.

In closing, the editors would like to express their appreciation to Poet Allen Ginsberg, for his “Reflections on the Mantra,” which is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel, whose title is as yet undetermined.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare!

The Editors

The Paramatman, or the Supersoul, is distinguished from jivatman, the individual soul that enjoys the fruits of the body. Jivatman is under the spell of the material qualities, and he enjoys of suffers material activities and consequences, but Paramatman has nothing to do with the material qualities. Some people, who do not know, say that Paramatman and jivatman are the same, but they do not understand that Paramatman has nothing to do with material qualities. He may be compared to a doctor in the hospital tending to his sick patients. He himself is not sick. Only a fool would say that, because the doctor is in the hospital, he too must be sick, so it is the same with those who say that because jivatman and Paramatman live together in the same body, they are the same. Paramatman is never affected by material things like toothaches, even though He is in the same body. The devotee of Krishna must accept the duality of Paramatman and jivatman.

Krishna lives in the body, but He is transcendental. When He comes to earth, He has nothing to do with the material qualities. People in ignorance think that because Krishna is manifested in a human body He is just an ordinary man. This is explicitly denied in Bhagavad Gita: “Foolish persons deride Me when I assume this human form of my transcendental nature. They do so without knowing my supremacy over everything created.” (Gita, IX/11)

We must always distinguish between Paramatman and jivatman. In the Upanishads they are compared to two birds sitting in the same tree. One bird (jivatman) is eating the fruits of the tree, while the other bird (Paramatman) just sits and watches. Similarly, Krishna and Arjuna sat in the same chariot, but Arjuna knew that Krishna was the Supreme. We are also in the same chariot with Krishna, and we too should know that He is the Supreme. Even in the midst of the material world, Krishna is not attached. He does not act out of need, because he has no desires.

To become like Krishna, we should give up all material desires, and take shelter of Krishna. Everything that we do, we do with His permission. If we want to turn away from Him, He lets us; if we want to suffer, He lets us. We must first realize that we are suffering, and then ask why. When the question “why” arises in the mind, it is time to approach a spiritual master who is conversant with the Transcendental Nature, and is fully engaged in spiritual matters twenty-four hours a day. A spiritual master is a man who never leaves his spiritual work to seek sense gratification.

We must know that we are actually qualitatively one with Krishna. When jivatman knows that he is not this body, he becomes like Paratman. Jivatman is almost God, but not quite. Jivatman is wonderful, but not equal to God. The quality is the same, but the quantity is far different. For example, the rays of the sun spread all over the sky, but they come from the sun. Likewise, the Brahmajyoti illumines far and wide, but it emanates from Krishna. The soul is a spark in the heart, but its energy spreads all over the body. As the earth and sky are illumined by the sun, so the body is maintained by the spiritual spark. As the body is maintained by the individual soul, so the entire universe is maintained by God, or the Super-soul. I am not the Supreme. I merely illumine this body, but the Supreme illumines the entire universe.

Today, the twenty-third of September, is Radha’s birthday. She is fifteen days younger than Krishna. When Krishna was a boy, He played with the children of the countryside. Because He was so beautiful, all the girls prayed that someday He would be their husband. Radha loved Krishna the most, even more than the others. She is the symbol of the greatest worship.

Krishna and the girls were of the same age. Because girls are married earlier than boys, the girls were all married before Krishna. Despite their marriages, the girls all loved Krishna so much that whenever He played His flute, they would leave their homes and go to Him. This continued until Krishna was sixteen.

At the age of sixteen Krishna left His friends and went to live with His real father. All His friends spent the rest of their lives weeping and longing for Him. This too, is worship. Radha and Krishna met again during a solar eclipse at Kurukshetra. It was a meeting of love, but they were again separated. Radha is Krishna’s beloved. By her blessing, Krishna will accept us. Hare also means Radha, so when we chant “Hare Krishna” we chant “Radha Krishna.”

Mantram (singular), mantra (plural) is a short verbal formula like Rolling Stones’ “I’m going home,” or Gertrude Stein’s “A rose is a rose is a rose,” which is repeated as a form of prayer meditation over and over until the original thin-conscious association with meaning disappears and the words become pure physical sounds uttered in a frankly physical universe; the word or sound or utterance then takes on a new density as a kind of magic language or magic spell and becomes a solid object introduced into the science fiction space-time place where the worshipper finds himself, surrounded by jutting mountain crags or city buildings.

After several minutes of devoted repetition—such as Alfred Lord Tennyson practiced with his own name (a form of worship of a form of the Self categorized by one Hindu as Atma Darshan. Self-communion translated—one might garland one’s own photo with flowers and kneel to worship that particular manifest image of Divinity)—it is possible that the awesome physical sound reverberating out of the body into the air might serve as a vehicle for the expression of nonconceptual sensations of the worshipper. That is to say, the magic formula pronunciation can be loaded with affects—feelings, emotions—(Bhakti or devotions is the Hindu term) passing through the body of the devotee. Feelings which arise spontaneously all the time, but rarely have suitable channels for direct expression. So that longer stretches of mantra chanting may become the opportunity for realization of certain blissful or horrific feelings which are latent and hitherto unrealized—tears may arise of which the devotee was not aware earlier. Or gaieties, or Hebraic solemnities. Thus the mantram may serve as an instrument for widening the area of immediate self-awareness of the singer; much as an intense conversation with psychoanalyst or lover, or priest or connection may bring out emotional news; singing (from olden times) deepens the soul of the singer. By deepens the soul, I mean not that the soul is added to like brick by brick, but that what’s already there becomes visible or audible. Well, we all know that about singing. I’m just explaining these simplicities to dispel mysterious notions or provincial resentments against the use of oriental tricks.

Negro spirituals which involve deepening of the expression of a repeated refrain function like mantra. So lovers’ cries in moments of crisis like “Oh I’m coming, coming. I’m coming. I’m coming, etc.” Singing in the bathroom or on lonesome bridges may have some general function of providing situations where full force of feeling is slowly developed and outwardly expressed in solitude. From Yoruba drum-dance-and-shout worship rituals to electronic folk-rock we have developed Western situations to manifest our fugitive aetherial consciousness.

The Indian practice of mantra-chanting is ancient and useful to know; but I don’t know enough about it technically to be the right guru. I wish to explain what I do know through gossip and practice, and hope that scholarly holymen will make allowances for my ignorance.

One Oriental idea is suggestive: that the mantra in itself has magic or practical power irrespective of the sincerity or propriety of its pronunciation in a given situation; and that mere pronunciation of the mantra is a meritorious and mysterious art. On this assumption I take liberty to chant and explain mantram publicly.

The name of Shiva pronounced accidentally by a dying man asking for a glass of water was, on one occasion of legend cause for his immediate release from bondage to rebirth and suffering.

Why is that? Because, according to theory, the names of the Gods used in the mantra are identical with the Gods (or powers invoked) themselves. So that one who sings Shiva’s name becomes Shiva (Creator or Destroyer) himself. The subjective experience of repeated singing of Shiva’s name confirms this theory, as far as I have been able to tell. Obviously it is a subjective experience, not an “objective” one. Subjective sensation is what I’m interested in recovering contact with; and here interpret “objectivity” as a retreat from feelable phenomena.

The mantram is generally given by a teacher to pupil, and most often is to be kept secret, and recited aloud when alone, or silently with lips or only mentally; and recited continually, until the mind’s activities become fixed around the mantram. That way a continuum is begun that deepens till maybe deathbed. Fixing the mind on one point, focusing and deepening in one spot is a classical method of yoga meditation. Some mantra are all-India common property, and are universal, public. The late Swami Shivananda (May his self bless us all!) of Rishikesh recommended Hare Krishna as the Maha Mantra—Great Mantra—for this age, infallible publicly and privately for everyone. He was a large souled man, “Vishnu Himself” as one beautiful yogi explained in a hermitage across the river from Shivananda’s Ashram. Shivananda was the first “accredited” Guru I encountered; a year later at the confluence of Yamuna and Ganges rivers called Trivondrum in Allahabad at a great fair of half a million holymen and ladies, I passed by a larger wooden Nepalese structure where a lady saint supposed to be some Northern princess sat enthroned, with her attendants and worshipers gathered to one side around a harmonium (hand organ) and heard her smiling enrapt singing of the same Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Her face had an inner smile reflected, eyes half closed, the song had lilt of tenderness and odd inevitable sweet rhythm, and though I did notice it at the time, the song was impressed on my own memory. It came back after many adventures. I never knew her name.

August 1, 1966

Just as in the dawning sun
the shadow a tree throws
is long,
but as the sun rises
it shortens,
recoiling into the tree
until at noon
the tree casts no shadow
but only stands alone,
ablaze in the purifying light:
So the shadow I cast
recedes
as my Consciousness of Krishna
rises
until my shadow dissolves
and I stand
under His Lotus Feet,
devoted
and pure.

—Brahmananda Das Brahmachary
(Bruce Scharf)