Vol. 2, No. 17

This is undoubtedly the most naive editorial you will read about the rioting at Columbia University:

Newsweek (May 6) reported: "In the office of [Columbia President] Kirk some students … broke into his stock of liquor and cigars …" But are they really to blame for imitating their seniors? If the foremost person of such a great university is engaged in smoking and drinking, it is hardly to be wondered at that his students tend toward licentiousness and disrespect. A teacher ought to be a paragon of the virtues he extolls, or at least ardent in his efforts. (And, what’s more, he ought to be extolling virtue.) When he is himself immoral (and drinking liquor is every bit as immoral as smoking marijuana), then he can hardly be expected to elevate those under his charge.

The present state of chaos in education throughout the world is no more than the natural result of the aims (or, rather, aimlessness) of the modern educational system. And this is no more than a reflection of the aimlessness of today’s civilization. On paper, in text books, it would seem that Mankind has just about reached the penultimate peak of knowledge, pleasure, comfort, security and power that he has ever known throughout countless millennia of evolutionary existence. And what we may call the older generation (those who lived through the Depression and fought the Second World War) are certain that this is so. Only the young, who are naive enough to wonder why their elders don’t live up to the pretty ideals they preach, and why their lives are actually wretched and unhappy, seem to recognize the facts.

For although modern civilization is a boom on paper, it’s a bust in practical terms. Even the naked primitives of the forest and desert are happier than modern civilized man, and it would be difficult to find an era anywhere in history as full of discontent as this one. Life carried on simply for the unlimited gratification of material and temporary senses is not worth living, and has no capacity to satisfy the intelligent human being. Without a transcendental purpose—without a direction toward final answers, toward the eternal and the Absolute—the human mission must always go unfulfilled, and human desire must always stand unsatiated and restless. Life not devoted to eternal fulfillment can only be devoted to death as its ultimate goal.

Civilization must serve the higher purposes of human life if it is not to decline into bestiality. And education must be made to lead the young members of society upward toward perfection in self-knowledge—in other words, toward the confrontation with, and love of, God. Unless these conditions are met and accounted for—unless the schools can be elevated above the standard of factories for producing factory workers—both education and civilization will continue to degenerate to the lowest stages of disorder, ineffectiveness and hopelessness.

And, above all, the men who govern and control education ought at least to be required to keep their personal lives free of vice and corruption, and should themselves be engaged in the higher pursuits of human consciousness. Or is there a double standard for students and teachers? Or are we so debased today that we don’t expect austerity from those who claim the respect and hold the positions of austere men? Or is the "advancement" of the human condition just an advertising slogan?

___________________________________________________

The aimlessness of materialistic civilization is again nicely demonstrated in the rising crime rate so much in today’s headlines in the United States. It seems never to occur to those who worry about these things that, instead of spending millions more on police to crush, and settlement houses to palliate, they might better direct their energies toward making more sensible laws.

It is the Law that makes criminals by defining what is right and what is wrong, what is legal and illegal. The present abominable state of near-chaos and utter disrespect for law and order is the result of stupid, impractical statutes created by businessmen for the sake of keeping and evolving nothing more than economic prosperity. But human life is meant for more than amassing bank balances, drinking Coke and staring dumbly at a television screen. Human life must target its energies upon the loving service of God if it is to be rewarding and happy. And if the laws of society disregard the Supreme Lord and the principles of religion, and ignore this single valid aim of civilization, then they can never be practical or successful.

Man cannot live as a dot on a statistical chart. Man cannot live as a mere economic unit, acting the role of an ant in a hill. Unless the deeper, more genuine and, ultimately, far more pressing need of man—the need to approach and know God, the Absolute Truth—can be fulfilled, then society will not be stable. And any attempt to regulate society simply for the sake of good business, though it may seem practical, will never work.

___________________________________________________

A note on yogis:

Those who are engaged in spending sums of money for Yoga lessons, private mantras, meditation courses and the like should stop at least once a day and ask themselves what it’s all about. What is Yoga? What is its goal? If you don’t know, then you must not know what you’re doing, or what you’re paying for.

The real Yoga system, as it comes down to us from the sages of ancient India, was meant to lead the practitioner to the stage of Samadhi, or trance, the mind having been fixed upon God in the Form of Four-Armed Narayana within the heart. The aim is to break all attachment with the bodily concept of life, and to identify oneself correctly as a pure, spiritual living entity, rather than as a product of material Nature. This is self-knowledge, or self-realization. It is a very difficult stage to attain, and impossible for one whose mind is concentrated on losing weight, retaining or increasing virility, achieving good health, or developing some occult powers.

At one time, the men of the Western world made their ways to the East—some in order to loot it, some to preach religion there. Now the trend seems to be reversed, but modern values being what they are, it’s difficult to know the exploiters from the missionaries. Before paying out hard-earned money or giving away precious time, be discriminating, and examine what you’re going into. If the goal is not pure consciousness, Krishna or God Consciousness, then it is not Yoga, but nonsense.

Modern historians differ as to the age of the various Vedic Scriptures, but the Scriptures themselves seem to agree that they were formally compiled five thousand years ago. Vyasadeva, the greatest of great sages, took the vast and voluminous teachings of the Absolute, which had been handed down by word of mouth since time beyond measure, and committed everything to writing for the benefit of modern man. It is on this literature that the Hindu religions of later times have been based. One of the more important of the works thus handed down to us is the Mahabharata, the chronicle of the last ages of Earth up to the commencement of the present era, called Kali Yuga, or the Age of Dissension.

The most significant event in the previous age was the Appearance of the Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna, upon this planet, and the display by Him of His eternal Qualities, Pastimes, and Paraphernalia. Among His other acts, the Lord took part in the Kurukshetra War as Charioteer for His beloved friend Arjuna, and it is engaged in this activity that He is pictured on this month’s cover.

Unwilling to take the part of an active combattant, Sri Krishna offered to lend His army to one side in the conflict, and His Personal friendship to the other. Arjuna’s enemies chose God’s energy, while the devoted Bowman chose God’s friendship. This is a lesson to Mankind, one he seems never to comprehend: for it was Arjuna who triumphed at Kurukshetra, after eighteen days of bloody fighting. Thus the great devotee broke the power of the atheist King Duryodhana, and established the just reign of his own brother, Yudhisthira.

Yudhisthira’s nephew, Maharaj Parikshit, was the last ruler of this world before the onset of Kali Yuga. In a sense, the Battle of Kurukshetra marked the real ending of Dwapara Yuga, the Middle Age, though the virtues of both Yudhisthira and his nephew staved off the darkness for some time.

More important than the Battle or the flux of the Ages of Earth, however, is the transcendental message of love, devotion, peace and supreme glory which is revealed in the great dialog between Krishna and Arjuna which took place just before the onset of the fighting. This dialog is called The Bhagavad Gita. This is the science of the Eternal, which the Lord chose to deliver in this fashion at Kurukshetra, and one who studies this science, like Arjuna, will know “opulence, victory, extraordinary power, and morality,” and will stand beyond the clutches of Death. And, again like Arjuna, the devotee by his love can engage the Supreme Lord to steer him through all danger.

is published monthly by ISKCON Press, an organ of The International Society For Krishna Consciousness.

Editorial offices: 243 East Tenth street, New York, New York 10003. All contents © copyright 1968 ISKCON Press.

FOUNDER: A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

MANAGING EDITOR: Rayarama Das Brahmachary

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Madhusudan Das Brahmachary

BUSINESS CONSULTANT: Alan Kallman

As Recounted In The Most Perfect Ripened Fruit Of All Vedic Literature—Srimad Bhagwatam

Written by Satsvarupa das brahmachary

Illustrated by Jadurany Devi Dasi

Lettered by Jia Govinda das brahmachary

(the opening scene depicted is Bhisma lying on his 'bed of arrows' on the battlefield of Kurukshetra surrounded by the Pandavas and other saints)

Sage: For a deathbed Bhisma has only the arrows that have pierced his body! .............But all do bow before him!

Saint: (kneeling in veneration, caption shows the following as his thoughts) Just see how great is Bhisma! Only to catch a glimpse of him, yogis and saints from many planets have gathered here! ..........Even the Supreme Lord—Krishna himself—has come to pay respects! Although He is God, He appears now among us as our family member!

Yogi: Krishna is the chariot driver of Arjuna, Bhisma's enemy—and still He pays respect to this great warrior!

Saint 2: Chariot driver?? Krishna is God! Yet see how humble He acts—just to please His devotee!

Krishna: All glories to Bhismadev! Please accept my obeisances!

Yogi: If God is humble to him, then Bhisma's fame is even more wonderful than I can imagine!

Bhisma: O most exalted Lord, by your presence alone I have lost all bodily pain! But—now I am at the very brink of death! ..........And so I beg You—let me see You as you were—pierced by arrows from my bow! Were are they not like bitings of Your sweetheart in the joys of love play? .............To face You in battle as an opponent was my highest pleasure and glory!

"Kindly stay by me now—and let me see You as You were at Kurukshetra—the chariot driver of Arjuna!"

Arjuna: Draw up my chariot, O Krishna—so that I may see whom I am fighting—and what their strength is!

Krishna: There is Bhisma, your grandfather! There is Drona, your former military teacher! And there is Duryodana, the King! ...........These are the chief men you must slay!

Bhisma: (recalling events) "Meanwhile Duryodana and I looked on....."

Bhisma: Lord Krishna is pointing us out! Do you see Him—His body the colour of a fresh blue rain cloud?

Duryodana: What are you saying, Bhisma? We must move our forces—at once!

Duryodana: Everyone knows our army would be already destroyed but for you! You alone are my fighting force! And yet—I sense your real affection does not lie on our side! Only political entanglement forces you to fight with the loving Arjuna! Yes—and I fear your soft heart is holding you back from your full fighting strength?

Bhisma: No! You speak falsely, Duryodana! You insult me!

Duryodana: Please, grandfather Bhisma! My only concern—

Bhisma: Enough! Here—I give into your care these five enchanted arrows which will seal the fate of Arjuna and his brothers!

In the morning, return them to me, and—by tomorrow night—they will rest in the hearts of the Pandava brothers!

Duryodana: (Caption shows the following as Duryodana's happy thoughts) At last! I have given rise to the great warrior's rage! And thus I now hold the very lives of my enemies in my hands!

However, that night—as was the custom in those chivalrous days....

(Caption shows Arjuna visiting Duryodana's camp)

Duryodana's officer: Behold—the valiant Arjuna comes to visit in our camp!

Duryodana's officer 2: Hail to you, mighty armed bowman!

Duryodana's officer 3: Will you feast with us this night—ere dawn come and find us foes again?

Arjuna: Nay, kind warrior! Tonight my purpose is grave—and I would speak of it to Duryodana—your King!

Duryodana's officer 4: King Duryodana? Then—follow me, Arjuna!

Arjuna: Duryodana—I have come to remind you of a favour you once promised to grant me!

Duryodana: Why, yes! I remember my promise! What is it you wish?

Arjuna: This only, good cousin—that you turn over to me five special arrows which I know you now possess!

Duryodana: The arrows?! ..........But—very well, Arjuna!.........Rather than break my word— here— take the prized shafts!

Bhisma: It is by the trickery of Lord Krishna that those arrows were taken! But—my promise of violence upon the Pandavas requires no special weapon's! Who can block the fury of my attack? None save Lord Krishna Himself!.................Though He has promised not to take a fighting part in the battle—............—He will have to take up arms—if He truly wishes to spare Arjuna!

(Caption shows Bhisma in the battle:)

Bhisma: Fallback soldiers! ........One fighting general is worth ahundred sleeping rascals!

Pandava soldier: (fleeing) The old lion is an entire phalanx by himself!

Bhisma: Run home boys—and tells Arjuna he is doomed! ............Here—taste the wrath of a warrior!

Pandava soldier 2: (fleeing) Back! Get back! Nothing can stop him!

Pandava soldier 3: He's heading straight for Arjuna's chariot!

Bhisma: If I have ever earned fame as a weapon wielder........Now let me hit the ultimate target! (His thoughts as he positions his arrow:) Fly arrows—and pierce the body of the Lord!

(Caption shows the arrows flying towards Lord Krishna, then...)

Pandava soldier 4: (panicking) Behold—Krishna is hit!

Pandava soldier 5: He—He'll be killed!

Pandava soldier 6: You dolts! You forget that He is the Supreme Person—God himself! He cannot be truly harmed! ..............It is all but a sublime plaything—the past time of the Lord—by which the devotee is pleased!

Bhisma: Arjuna now you must die!

Arjuna: Lay on mighty grandfather—and we shall see who dies and who lives!

Bhisma: (thinks the following) Krishna must keep his word not to fight .......... And yet He has promised to always protect his devotees!.......... As for Bhisma—my vow is made! Only He can stop me now!

(Caption now shows Bhisma about to kill Arjuna with his sword)

Bhisma: Though you be no unworthy warrior, Arjuna—now breathe your last! (thinks the following:) Krishna I shall stay Your devotee! Will you not come to stop me?

Krishna: So be it Bhisma!

Warrior: Behold you! Lord Krishna is taking up a weapon! ........... But—He has promised not to lend His strength to either side!

Arjuna: My Lord—No!!.......... God has broken his promise!

Krishna: Get aside, Arjuna!

Warrior: Look! He's rushing for Bhisma like a lion enraged!

Krishna: Bhisma now wishes to force Me to personally fight him! And so I shall—........... Though I [break] my promise—never shall I see my devotee crushed! ............... As you have wished with all your heart and soul—so I am here—to kill you! ............ You wanted to see how I would protect My devotee—........... now—stop fighting at once—or die!

Bhisma: Yes—yes! I surrender! Do whatever You wish with me!

Krishna: All glories to you, great Bhisma! ........... You are my pure devotee! ......... And—because you have surrendered—from this day forth you will always have Me before you in My personal form—....... For you have aspired—as the very destination of your life—that I should come to you!

"Yes! Let me see that Krishna—who came to kill me with the shattered wheel, breaking his own promise in order to save his devotee! Let me see the Divine Lord, by whose merciful glance all who died on that grim battlefield of liberated, gaining eternal bliss in the spiritual sky!"

(Caption shows the rasa dance:)

"He is a self-same Lord who—by the sound of this flute—attracted the damsels of braja the gopis, to the rasa dance in the moonlight! At this last stage of my life, I pray to have the mercy of those gopis who were as one with the Lord—for lover and the beloved become like equals!"

Yogi: Surely—Bhisma will not return to this mortal world! He has worshipped Lord Krishna as the origin of all life, and so he will attain to the transcendental abode, Vaikuntha!

Yogi 2: As yogis, we can understand that Bhisma has attained a spiritual form—.... And he will take part with the Lord eternally in blissful and all-knowing activity!

Sage: How awesome is the stature of mahajan Bhisma!

Bhisma is famous as both warrior and devotee throughout the universes! Men and demigods alike appear at his passing and honor him by beating drums—and they drop rainstorms of flowers in their respect for this great departed soul—Bhismadev!

SIDDHARTHA, a novel by Hermann Hesse; 153 pps; New Directions Books, $1.15.

SIDDHARTHA could only have been written by a European scholar, and even though the setting is India, circa the start of the 5th Century B. C., and the characters are all Indians and, in fact, even though the Message and Meaning of the book are suposed to be timeless and without designation—every line and page seems to crackle with European Heaven, European Hell, European misconceptions about both Vedic doctrine and Hindu everyday life, and above all, European cynicism regarding “reality.”

To begin with, Hermann Hesse’s conception of the Hindu era in which his characters live is straight from an encyclopedia. There are, it would seem, two streams of religious or philosophical thought through which Siddhartha wades during his lifetime: one is the polytheism of his family and the established Brahminical order; the other is the impersonal “merging” into the Absolute, dear to the ascetics. There is never a trace of Vaishnavism in SIDDHARTHA the book, nor the least tendency toward worship of one Supreme Being within the heart of Siddhartha the character. This is no small omission, for we must understand that Vaishnavism—the Devotional Service of God—has always been and remains even today the mainstream of Vedic thought.

Except for scholars. The scholars have taken Sankaracharya as the greatest thinker in Vedic history, and they have developed and lauded his theories regarding the impersonal, immutable, undifferentiated nature of the Absolute with such fervor, that the people of the West—who are, after all, at the mercy of the scholarly sect—have come to believe that Sri Sankara’s teaching is THE Hindu philosophy. Other than the sublime impersonal, the scholars see only a bewildering pantheon of “many gods,” which seems to be such an annoyance to them that they’ve never bothered to look into that “pantheon” very seriously or open-mindedly.

Beginning with F. Max Muller, and even going back before him, the prejudices and arrogances of the narrowly scholastic community have filtered out the devotional aspects of Vedic culture in bringing the Sacred texts of India to the West. And so it isn’t surprising that Hermann Hesse—who clearly is an armchair mystic—should seemingly know nothing of the monotheistic sects which form the real living core of Hindu philosophy; and it’s also not surprising that God the Person barely gets a nod in Hesse’s book. This is, however, a meter of the superficiality of the man’s “search” for Truth—and the search of Siddhartha and the search of Siddhartha’s creator can hardly be separated. Otherwise, there would be no scope in a magazine of philosophy for the review of a novel. We aren’t interested here in aesthetics, style, or even imagery. We’re simply anxious to approach the Truth, the Absolute.

Why review SIDDHARTHA at all, then? The reason is that the book has had a tremendous influence upon people young and old—but especially young—who are themselves in search of Truth, or at least of something better than hard-rock, aimless materialism. For Siddhartha the character is a searcher, a discontent, a wanderer, always anxious to find something final—peace. (And isn’t that our old friend European War-Weariness dominating Siddhartha’s thoughts? Maybe not. We all do want peace, some way or other.) And in this sense Siddhartha is very much representative of modern man, and, far more, of modern youth.

Yet the book SIDDHARTHA is not written as a probe, but rather as a dogma. The dogma? Reject all dogmas. And in this SIDDHARTHA the book fails to fulfill any meaningful purpose in human society, and fails furthermore in living up to the faith of those who may read it with the hope of finding a direction there for themselves. For although, in his wanderings, Siddhartha studies with forest mendicants, and encounters none other than Lord Buddha Himself, he rejects them all for a life of sin. The moral here may escape you, but that’s only the half of it. The other half is that the author himself never really lets us in on what Lord Buddha is teaching. There’s a great deal of talk about how He looks—holy fingers, holy hands, etc.—but hardly more than the most superficial glance at His doctrine. The same with the forest mendicants. Their teachings are refuted, but never examined. How they look we are told, and also how they suffer, but not what they believe in.

The real principle of spiritual understanding—like the pursuit, practically speaking, of any branch of knowledge—is to hear the teachings of a realized soul, an expert. Knowledge is acquired by hearing. To walk out of a classroom because a teacher doesn’t appear to be knowledgeable would be an act of awful folly. And to accept or reject spiritual knowledge because someone looks “holy,” or doesn’t, is also foolish. Yet this is as far as Hermann Hesse lets us go in understanding any philosophy but his own. Even the conversation between Siddhartha and Gotama Buddha is one-sided, and all the Buddha really gets to say is to watch out against being too clever. At least He looks perfect.

The plot of the book is simple if perplexing: Siddhartha has a restless impulse to fulfill himself, and, feeling that he’s exhausted the store of knowledge that his father and home-town teachers can give him, he sets off into the forest with a band of wandering ascetics. After some time, this life also seems to be leading him nowhere, and so he leaves the ascetics to go to see Gotama Buddha, Whose reputation is at this time stirring all India. But one look at the Buddha (looks count for everything here, please remember), and Siddhartha knows that he can only gain wisdom through his own experience. In a chapter which is oddly entitled “The Awakening,” Siddhartha leaves the Buddha, and then wanders off into—sin. Yes, having come to the conclusion that he’s every bit as good as Lord Buddha, Siddhartha sinks into worldliness. There’s no mention of the Buddha falling into worldliness, and the reader is left to wonder where any equality between these two can exist.

After a life of sensuousness, in which he accomplishes nothing, Siddhartha realizes how low he has fallen, and leaves this situation too. He comes at length to a river, and to a ferryman who has apparently reached perfection by listening to the gurgle of the waters. Here Siddhartha stays, and here he too reaches “perfection.”

Throughout this book, beginning with the last sentence of the very first paragraph, Siddhartha is constantly having “awakenings,” as the author calls them. Immediately afterward, however, Siddhartha drops like a torpedo into sin and nonsense—“Sansara.” What passed for an awakening to Herr Hesse was clearly his own invention. That first paragraph says, for example, that the hero “Already … knew how to recognize Atman within the depth of his being, indestructible, at one with the universe.” Casually, just like that. Again this is a display of the author’s ignorance of the science of the Absolute, for Atman is Self, and Siddhartha at this point is only a boy, and hasn’t even yet begun his search for himself.

Nor, as he rolls into full gear, does he ever really succeed in his quest. Leaving the Buddha, with that assumption of equality between them (a pretension never once mitigated by a tinge of humility throughout this book), Siddhartha goes, not to heaven, but to a harlot’s bed. He falls into sin, and here the philosophy of Hermann Hesse really begins to reveal itself. Like Rasputin, he seems to have felt that sin is good for a man. As good as virtue, anyway. At the end, fully enlightened, Siddhartha says (among a great many other unfortunate things): “… it seems to me that everything that exists is good—death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly.” “…It was necessary for me to sin, … I needed lust, … I had to strive for property … in order to learn to love the world … to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it.”

Yes, you’re better off just looking, just staying at the surface, if you want anything “holy” out of this. For, to follow this philosophy through, we must assume that sinfulness teaches us—after some time, of course—to “love the world.” But, according to the great Teachers whom Hesse is aping, loving the world was the very cause of sin—and neither the one nor the other has ever been highly esteemed by the Buddha, Lord Jesus, Lord Chaitanya, or any other sacred Teacher of validity. What’s more, by Herr Hesse’s definition, we should assume that Adolf Hitler—the greatest sinner of our time if ever there was a sinner—was really our greatest saint, the world’s number one lover. Too bad we didn’t know it at the time.

The idea that one can come to wholly accept the world exactly as it is, and live peacefully in this way, was not new with Hermann Hesse. Nor has the failure of such a philosophy in practical terms discouraged increasingly more men—today especially—to accept this doctrine. Yet this is a concept of life which must ever be wholly intellectual, for one who actually did accept everything would have nothing to say to anyone; and if that were so, books like SIDDHARTHA would never have come into existence, and we’d never have heard of such a philosophy in the first place.

To help the world, to live happily in this life or any other, to live at all, one must act, and action means discrimination between this and that, up and down, left and right, good and evil. Those who have no capacity to discriminate because of a lack of knowledge or of real values on the Absolute platform, have two choices to make: they can go with things, or pretend that it’s all illusion. From the latter. Siddhartha goes to the former state of consciousness, and readers of the book may find themselves at a loss to figure out whether anything was accomplished after all.

Indeed the (again ludicrously one-sided) dialog between Siddhartha and his lifelong friend Govinda at the end of this book is an item-by-item refutation of every principle of religion, morality and spiritual life ever handed down by the great Teachers of Mankind. If such a philosophy of sin, laissez-faire, and atheism (“[I had] to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection …”) is popular and sells a lot of copies in an age when God is reputed to be dead (He certainly was for Hesse) and when moral decay is rotting human civilization like an unchecked cancer, no one should be surprised.

But popularity doesn’t certify Truth, and the intelligent reader should reject the rampant speculations and back-and-forth enlightenments—as well as the life of sin-virtue—which the book SIDDHARTHA recommends. Siddhartha may have come to love the world, but he certainly never reached knowledge of the Absolute or of himself, for his creator never had such knowledge to imbue him with. Yet there is an Absolute Truth, an Absolute Knowledge, a Supreme Person—and it is unfortunate to say the least that so many people are deluded into wasting their precious time sentimentalizing over a specious display such as this, rather than take up the real study of God as it is found in the Scriptures Hesse so blithely refutes. If only he would have studied them first. Who knows that he mightn’t have had an “awakening” or two himself.

Dear Swamiji

I offer my respects unto the Lotus
Feet of my Spiritual Master,
Who is always herding cows
In Goloka Vrindaban with His
Dearmost Friend, Krishna.
Sometimes He is running barefoot
Through the forest chasing cows
And sometimes He is hiding behind
A tree waiting for Krishna to
Return with the spoils from
Mother Yasoda’s butter pots.
I offer my respects unto the Lotus
Feet of my Spiritual Master, Who is
Always thinking of what He can
Do in service of His Dearmost
Friend Krishna and never wanting
Anything in return.

Harsharani Devi Dasi

The woods are so dark and rich and deep and calling me tonight. “Come out. Come out of the temple and walk amidst our splendor,” say the trees. The moon is a white sliver and it rocks me back and forth: “Come out, come out, come out and see the twinkling heavens.” The sunset burns the hill it sets behind—so warm, so golden. There has never been such a sunset or such air. Have I ever smelled the air so pure as on this night? So clear, so soft, so fragrant… Ah, but I must wash some dishes for Krishna… In that small task all the wonders of this night are revealed to me. I am so fortunate to be washing Krishna’s dishes…

Himavati Devi Dasi

This
Lord Krishna
Blackish, plump
Standing on the shoulders
of His pals,
His two hands around the
covered bowl of butter
hanging on ropes from the ceiling,
has stolen my understanding.
Yasoda is ducking out the door.
He reaches two hands for the bowl.
The Selfsame One God Who descended
as the Hog, and Nosed out the Globe when the
Earth was put in a filthy place by demons,
The Same One Lord Who
As Nrisingha the half-man half-lion
Split apart a pillar and leaped
for grabbing demon Hiranakasipu
in His Nails of Lotus Palms,
has stolen my understanding.
Pious sage-monkeys of Vrindaban
reach out paws to
receive butter from His Hand.
He stands on the backs of His pals,
His arms held over His head,
hands around the butter-bowl.
All Glories to the Master of the Universe!
When is Krishna coming to steal my soul?

—Satsvarupa Das Brahmachary

April 17, 1968
John F. Kennedy Airport

Just hearing that Swamiji was coming back to New York, the devotees, having felt separation from their Spiritual Master, were filled now with so much bliss. Their joyful shouts of “Haribol!” filled the temple at Kirtan.

On the day Swamiji was to arrive, the temple was swarming with activity like a beehive. After morning Kirtan, Hansadutta and Brahmananda gave everyone some task to help prepare things. The brahmacharinis made garlands of flowers, and the brahmacharys cooked a feast. Others made a banner, cleaned the temple, arranged for transportation.

By noon all preparations were finished and the devotees took Prasadam, their spiritual food. Gargamuni called from San Francisco to say that Swamiji was on the plane, flying to us. In this way the Swami encircles the world with Krishna Consciousness.

A bus and a van arrived to take us to the airport. All the transcendental paraphernalia was loaded into the van. The devotees filed out of the temple, and a joyous Kirtan started. At this time many friends of the Society were arriving, anxious to meet Swamiji with us, and so there was a nice crowd.

Finally Brahmananda got everyone onto the bus. The caravan to Kennedy Airport began, a saffron-robed brahmachary driving a van of devotees, all chanting Hare Krishna along the Van Wyck Expressway. Arriving at the Airport, the devotees paraded into the American Airlines Terminal, before them a green-and-yellow banner displaying the Holy Names of God. Inside the Terminal, chairs were pushed aside and a rug was put on the floor. A garlanded painting of Radha-Krishna was set upon an easel, and surrounded by vases of flowers. In front of all this, candles and incense were lighted. Hansadutta, playing a mridangam drum, led Kirtan. A crowd of spectators and American Airlines officials watched as the devotees danced in ecstasy to the Holy Names of the Lord.

Finally Swamiji’s plane arrived, and the Swami stepped out into the Terminal Building and walked over to the seat prepared for him, as all the devotees offered their obeisances. Brahmananda, Purushottam, Rayarama, Balai, and Himavati offered garlands to him, and gasped with joy as Swamiji touched their heads in approval.

Then Swamiji was offered his khartals, and he led Kirtan. After this he lectured to the assembled people:

“God has got millions and trillions of Names,” he said. “Lord Chaitanya recommended that we chant the Name of God. He chanted Hare Krishna, and so we also chant Hare Krishna. But if you don’t like the Name Krishna, you can chant any Name of God that you have got. This chanting of the Lord’s Names is the only means to peace and prosperity in the world.”

Swamiji would have like to talk a little longer, but the Airline officials said they must prepare for the next flight, so everyone got up to leave.

There was a procession out of the airport, Annapurna and Kanchanbala strewing rosewater and rose petals in Swamiji’s path as he walked to the car followed by news reporters.

In the car, driving toward Manhattan, with its giant skyline flashing up above the horizon, the discussion turned to Maya, Illusion. “Maya seems to be getting stronger these days,” Mr. Kallman said, as he drove the Swami along.

Swamihi replied, “It’s not that we have to worry about Maya. It’s a question of how we are related to Maya.” Mrs. Kallman was sitting in the front seat with her husband and the Swamiji gave this example: “Mr. Kallman, if I relate to Mrs. Kallman as Mrs. Kallman, then the relationship is all right, is it not? But if I approach her not as Mrs. Kallman, then there must be some trouble.”

Swamiji was looking out of the car window, and he saw the Empire State Building looming over the city. “The situation of Maya is like the Empire State Building. It is very nice,” the Swami said. “One should look at the Empire State Building and think: It is a very nice building, if only it was used for Krishna’s purposes. Not that modern civilization is bad, but it should be used for Krishna’s purposes.”

He went on to say: “The achievements of modern civilization are like Zeros. So many nice things, all just like Zeros. There are so many Zeros, but they still only add up to Zero. But then, if One is added, all the Zeros have some value. That One that has to be added is Krishna. If Krishna is there, so many Zeros with One in front of them will add up to a very substantial accomplishment.”

Now they were in front of the temple. Swamiji got out of the car and went inside where all the devotees and friends of the Society were sitting. Upon seeing Swamiji, everyone bowed down to pay obeisances to him, and he went upstairs to his apartment.

Sitting in his room, many garlands still about his neck, Swamiji said: “Now I am home! I can never forget this apartment, because this is where I started my mission.” He was beaming happily, looking about the small three-room flat which his disciples had painted and cleaned only days before. “When I left, I was very much fearful that the Society would diminish. But instead, it has increased. I am very much pleased.” Swami gave Brahmananda and Rayarama a garland each, and come downstairs to speak at Kirtan. Our joy cannot be described in words or pictures or photos. The pure devotee was pleased. It was a most auspicious day.

END

O Dear Gopis!
O purest of the Pure
So dear to Krishna,
Who can help you look for Him,
When suddenly He leaves
The Sacred Rasa Dance,
Black Cloud adorned with lightning,
Disappearing in the dark
Tangled wood.

O Dear Lalita, Visakha,
Kantchenbala, where did He go?
Did you see a hint of gold
Beyond those whispering trees, wet
With the shimmering drops of moonlight?

Watching for soft red sparks of ruby,
For lights of white pearl, always
Searching His Sweet Name,
Krishna, Krishna, Krishna!
Krishna, Krishna, Krishna?

Listening for His maddening Flute, and
The soft step of His Lotus Foot,
Red palm aglow in the quietly loving grass.
Filling your nostrils with the blissful
Cool night breeze, to catch
The warm Fragrance of Him,
Infinitely surpassing the essence
Of blue lotus and honey.

Seeking in every bower’s heart.
Ah, but RADHARANI knows
His hiding place.
Did you pass by the wonderful
Four-Armed Narayan, with
His Mace, Disk, Conch, and Lotus
Who tried with all His Might
To hold His disguise?
Yet two arms kept fading
Before the Glories of Radha’s Love,
Revealing a Beautiful Cowherd Boy,
Smiling, as He raised a flute
To His lips.

—Rupanuga Das Adhikary

In Bhakti Yoga, all activities can be turned to spiritual advancement. This article describes how to spiritualize your eating—and enjoy ecstasy at every meal.

Krishna Consciousness is a way of life that is practiced twenty-four hours a day. It fulfills the needs of the spirit, the mind and the body. We are pure spirit soul encased in these material bodies: the subtle body of mind, and the gross body, of which the five senses are a part. The need of spirit is to become uncovered and return back to home, back to Godhead upon leaving this body. The way this is achieved is by chanting the Hare Krishna Mantra and by regulating the needs of the body, which are eating, sleeping, fearing and mating.

Surrender is the first step. Surrender to a pure soul, the Spiritual Master comes with chanting and hearing this Mantra, and eating Krishna Prasadam, food specially prepared and offered to the Lord, then distributed to friends and family. These two activities produce attachment to Krishna Consciousness.

Here we will discuss Krishna Prasadam. Prasadam is spiritual food because it has been offered to Lord Krishna through the chanting of the following mantras three times each in front of the picture or statue of the Deity:

Krishna eats the food and then we take the remnants. The good taste of the food is thus enhanced, and the body and mind become healthy while the soul remains engaged in service to the Lord.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says that you may offer Him a leaf, a flower, some water, some fruit; and, if offered with love as a devotee of Krishna, then He will accept such an offering. Elsewhere in the Bhagavad Gita, He says that when something is given to Him in sacrifice, that activity is Him, and that He becomes the offering. So you can easily see that eating this Krishna Prasadam is most beneficial for making progress in Krishna Consciousness. Eating Prasadam is associating with Krishna Himself, just as chanting His Name is associating with Krishna, the Supreme Personality, the All-Blissful.

Prasadam is first of all prepared specifically for Krishna, in the way that He likes it. The Spiritual Master therefore gives all the recipes and methods of preparation to his disciples according to the system of “parampara” (disciplic succession), and so we may be sure that we are preparing what is acceptable to Krishna.

Everything used during preparation is clean. All fruits, vegetables, nuts, rice and other grains that can be washed are washed, and all utensils, pots and dishes are washed before using. Anything that drops on the floor is washed. The cook’s hands are kept clean. So, during preparation, don’t touch your hair, clothes, body, garbage can, floor, etc. Since the food is being cooked for Krishna there should be no tasting or smelling, except when urgently required.

When Prasadam is all prepared place on a nice metal (preferably silver) platter, along with yogurt and cold water in nice metal bowls. Place on your altar and offer to Lord Krishna. After chanting the mantras you may remove the food and “take” to your heart’s content.

Now you’re ready to cook for Krishna. Following are four recipes for a nice noon meal:

1 lb. butter
1 tsp. cumin seed
1 tsp. salt
eggplant
¼ cup turmeric powder
¼ cup water

Melt butter in pan; add cumin seeds. Brown (don’t burn). Cut eggplant in wedges, dip into batter—made of turmeric powder, salt and water. Cover all sides of eggplant nicely. Then place in pan over medium heat to deep fry each side. Cook until soft all thru. Remove and drain in colander.

Boil potatoes until cooked thru (test with knife). Peel, cut into large pieces and brown in a little butter and cumin seed, with a pinch of turmeric and salt.

Half cup plain yogurt (not skim milk) 4 strawberries cut up into little pieces and 4 teaspoons sugar, mix, serve cold.

Make dough; 3 parts whole wheat flour to 1 part white flour and water as desired. Let stand, then knead to medium soft consistency (15 minutes at least). Make large balls (2-inch diameter) and roll out about 8 inches round so it’s nice and thick. Spread top with melted butter and fold in half. Roll out again, spread top with butter again, fold into quarter. Rollout again, then melt enough butter to fry one in a pan (medium low flame). Fry on each side, pressing with spoon turning frequently until it turns reddish. Then it’s done.

In the Bhagavad Gita (VI/2) Krishna defines Yoga as “linking oneself with the Supreme.” Yoga means to get into touch with the Supreme Lord. That Supreme Lord is Bhagavan Sri Krishna, as is stated in Srimad Bhagwatam (1.2.28):

The ultimate knowable object in the revealed Scriptures is Sri Krishna, the Personality of Godhead. The purpose of performing sacrifices is to please Him; the mystic paraphernalia are performed for realizing Him; all fruitive activities are ultimately rewarded by Him only. He is the Supreme knowledge, and all severe austerities are performed just to know Him. Religion means to do devotional service unto Him. And He is the Supreme Goal of life.

Vasudeva, Sri Krishna, is all-in-all. The whole purpose of this human form of life is to realize Him, and to re-establish our relationship with Him. Yoga is not meant for any other purpose, such as gaining mystic powers, recognition, wealth, or any other material benefits. The loving service of Govinda, Krishna, is itself the indescribable nectar to be derived from its practice.

And, of all yogis, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshipping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in Yoga. (B.G. VI/47)

How does one go about achieving this relationship? In the Sixth Chapter of Bhagavad Gita, Krishna gives an outline of the Yoga system, consisting of going to a secluded, sacred place; laying out a special seat; meditating, etc. And Arjuna, a great devotee, rejects it as impractical and unendurable. If Arjuna rejects this system, then who today can take it up? Actually, no one. Or, if we must yield a step for argument’s sake, perhaps one or two men out of billions. As for the rest of humanity, Yoga is not for them, as it is thus outlined. We are five thousand years into the Age of Kali, this Age of Chaos and Destruction. Man’s life span is shortened, he lives in surroundings which are unconducive to spiritual growth, and his mind is in turmoil. How can he hope to sit in meditation, controlling the mind and senses?

However, the factual perfection of Yoga is available to everyone, by chanting HARE KRISHNA, HARE KRISHNA, KRISHNA KRISHNA, HARE HARE, HARE RAMA, HARE RAMA, RAMA RAMA, HARE HARE . This is the simple and sublime method recommended by great authorities for this Age. By chanting this Maha Mantra, or the Great Chanting for Deliverance, one is immediately placed on the spiritual platform, surpassing all lower levels of existence. And Krishna is present before you. Krishna being Absolute, His Name is non-different from His Form, Pastimes, Entourage, or Abode. Through this chanting, one can experience the transcendental bliss derived from association with the Lord, and gain full knowledge of spiritual matters.

We are all servants by nature, and Krishna is the Master of everything by His Divine Nature. We are always serving Him, whether indirectly through the agency of His illusory energy, Maya; or directly under the guidance of His bona fide representative. Krishna Consciousness is the direct transcendental loving service of the Lord. It is not merely a method for achieving some higher goal: it is itself the perfection of all Yoga systems, the final goal of all life, and especially the goal of human life. The devotee desires no reward. Love of God is its own reward. He simply desires to be blessed, life after life, with the service of Krishna and the rememberence of His Holy Names.

At this moment, when so many people are becoming infatuated with Yoga, many are being misled into every manner of nonsense and evil by the so-called spiritual leaders, who desire cheap adoration from the innocent public. In the Bhagavad Gita (III/6) Krishna says:

One who restrains the senses and organs of action, but whose mind dwells on sense objects, certainly deludes himself, and is called a pretender.

In his purport to this Verse, our Spiritual Master, A C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, has written:

There are many pretenders who refuse to work in Krishna Consciousness, but make a show of meditation, while actually dwelling within the mind upon sense enjoyment. Such pretenders may also speak on dry philosophy, in order to bluff sophisticated followers. But, according to this verse, these are the greatest cheaters. For sense enjoyment one can act in any capacity within the social order, following the rules and regulations of a particular situation of life, and thus make gradual progress in purifying his existence. But if any man makes a show of becoming a yogi, while actually in search of the objects of sense gratification, he must be called the greatest cheater, even though he sometimes speaks of philosophy. His knowledge has no value because the effects of such a sinful man’s knowledge are taken away by the illusory energy of the Lord. Such a pretender’s mind is always impure, and therefore his show of yogic meditation has no value whatsoever.

We are faced today by many pretenders who claim to be spiritual leaders, holy men, swamis, etc. But most of these men fall under the headings of intoxicant leaders, mental speculators, and atheists who do not have an iota of devotion in them. It is necessary to choose a spiritual master in order to make progress, but we must be careful and use discrimination, or else we will be badly misled. The true spiritual master is Krishna’s bona fide representative, and only he can impart to us the highest good.

A spiritual master must receive his knowledge from someone who is in a line of disciplic succession, originating from Lord Sri Krishna. He must hear this knowledge correctly, realize it for himself, and then impart it to the student without changing it. This is the only way to gain true knowledge. The spiritual master is well versed in spiritual matters, and is the embodiment of religious practices. These are some of the identifying characteristics of Krishna’s representative. And, by surrendering to him, one can achieve the perfection of Yoga, devotion to Krishna—and even Krishna Himself.

Service of the Absolute Truth
means to render service
unto the Absolute Personality of Godhead.

The neophyte devotee has no capacity to approach
the Absolute Personality of Godhead with his present,
imperfect,
material senses.
By submissively serving the bona fide spiritual master
who is a bridge between the Lord
and the neophyte,
he is automatically fixed up into
the transcendental service of the Lord.

And, by so doing even for some days
the neophyte gains
knowledge which leads him
ultimately
to extricate himself from the perpetual habitation
in the material world after world after world
and be promoted
to the transcendental world
to be one of the liberated associates
of the Lord
in the Kingdom of God.

[versified from the lectures of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami by his disciple Brahmananda Das Brahmachary]

Swamiji had come to San Francisco in late January, 1967 for the opening of the Krishna Consciousness Temple there, at 518 Frederick Street. Allen Ginsberg had always shown friendly and helpful interest in the Society; and he agreed to attend a giant “Mantra Rock Festival,” which the temple members were planning to hold in the Avalon Ballroom. And so, a few days before that event, the good poet came to early morning Kirtan (7 A. M.), and later joined the Swami upstairs in the apartment his pupils had rented for him.

We were sitting in the glow of this holy man, munching on Indian sweetballs cooked by the Swami, when Allen Ginsberg came through the door, a warm smile on his face.

The Swami offered him a sweetball: “Take.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, radiating mutual love.

SWAMIJI: Allen, you are up early.

GINSBERG: Yes. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I arrived in San Francisco.

SWAMIJI: That is what happens when one becomes famous. That was the tragedy of Mahatma Gandhi also. Wherever he went, thousands of people would crowd about him, chanting, “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Mahatma Gandhiki jai!” The gentleman could not sleep.

GINSBERG: (smiling) Well, at least it got me up for Kirtan this morning.

SWAMIJI: Yes, that is good.

A few days before, the San Francisco Chronicle had published an article called “Swami in Hippie Land,” in which the reporter had asked: “Do you accept ‘hippies’ in your temple?”

The Swami had replied, “Hippies or anyone—I make no distinctions. Everyone is welcome.”

SWAMIJI: Allen, what is this “hippie?”

GINSBERG: The word “hip” started in China, where people smoked opium lying on their hips. [He demonstrates.] Opium and its derivatives then spread to the West, and were looked down upon by the people in power, who were afraid of the effects. As a result, the hip people created their own culture … language, signs, symbols.

San Francisco is a spiritual “shivdas” [meeting ground]. The word hip has changed into hippie today. But basically, Swamiji, the young people today are seekers. They’re interested in all forms of spirituality.

SWAMIJI: Very nice.

GINSBERG: The hippies will all fall by at one time or another.

There was some discussion regarding New York’s Lower East Side and the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco—both of which are locations of Krishna Consciousness temples, and are well-known to Allen Ginsberg. Then:

SWAMIJI: You have not had LSD, Allen?

GINSBERG: I have had it.

SWAMIJI: It is dependence, Allen.

GINSBERG: It’s like a car—a mental car—to resolve certain inner things.

SWAMIJI: Krishna Consciousness resolves everything. Nothing else is needed.

Poet Ginsberg said he was not yet ready to become a devotee, but that he chants the Maha Mantra every day, and will do so until he leaves this Earth. The Swami thanked him for the work he’d already done in spreading the Kirtan (Krishna Conscious) Movement, and assured him that, if he chanted Hare Krishna daily, “everything will be perfect.”

Allen Ginsberg then prostrated himself, and, touching the Swami’s feet, he symbolically wiped the dust from them onto his forehead. Then, with a few sweetballs in a paper bag under his arm, he took his leave.

Yes this Hare Krishna
if you practice in dream
that you are chanting Hare Krishna
you are dancing in the temple
you are seeing Lord Jagganath
you are seeing Krishna
you are talking with Swamiji
or your friends, it is simply practice.

Just like a businessman sees in a dream
he is dealing with some customer. Why?
The whole day he has done that.

The whole day and whole night
if you engage simply in chanting Hare Krishna
you will be in Krishna Consciousness
very easy.

versified by
Satsvarupa Das Brahmachary

[Evening lecture on the teachings of the boy Prahlad Maharaj, April 12, 1967]

Prahlad Maharaj is instructing his young friends: “My dear friends, material enjoyment means agitating the senses. You have this material enjoyment—sense enjoyment—my dear friends, and your only thought is how to enjoy these senses, that’s all. By contact of this body.” In possession of a particular body we have particular senses and we enjoy. Just like a camel: a camel enjoys thorny twigs. Camels are very fond of thorny twigs. Why? Because when they chew the thorny twigs blood comes out of the tongue, and they are tasting their own blood. And the camel is thinking it is very nice. He is eating thorny twigs, and the twig is cutting his tongue and blood is oozing out. He is tasting his own blood, but he thinks, “I am enjoying.” This is sense gratification. Sex life is also like that. We are tasting our own blood, and we think we are enjoying. This is our foolishness.

Every living entity has contracted this material body; he is a spiritual being but because he has a tendency to enjoy, to make exploitation of this material energy, he has contracted a body. There are different varieties of life. There are 8,400,000 species of living entities, each with a different body. According to the body, they have their senses in order to enjoy a particular type of pleasure. Prahlad Maharaj says this body and its particular type of enjoyment go together. Suppose you are given the thorny grass or twigs: Ladies and gentlemen, here is very nice food, it is certified by the camels, it is very good. Would you like to take? “No! What nonsense are you offering me?” Because you have got a different body, you have no taste for that. But if you offer it to a camel, because he has that particular type of body, it is a very nice thing.

This is going on—one man’s food is another man’s poison. If you are offered something which is not your food, you cannot take it. These different kinds of enjoyment are according to the particular type of body. That is the conclusion. The stool-eater hog will not accept any nice foodstuff such as cake. Give him stool, and it will be very nice. If you are offered the stool, you say, “What are you offering?” Because you have got a different body.

There are different kinds of material enjoyment, but those who are actually intelligent know that this particular type of enjoyment is due to this body. Actual happiness, however, is that which is not enjoyed by these material senses. Actual happiness is enjoyed by the spiritual senses. Now these are covered by matter, and therefore we are entrapped. Now Prahlad Maharaj says, Whatever it may be, you can have this sense enjoyment in any type of body. Then what is our enjoyment? Eating, sleeping, defending and mating. But this sort of sensual enjoyment—whether you have a dog’s body, or a hog’s body, or a god’s body—whatever you are in this material world, you have some sort of enjoyment offered by the Supreme Lord. Such material happiness is had by the arrangement of Nature. As you get miseries without your endeavor, similarly you will get your material enjoyment without trying for it. This is the conclusion.

Therefore, you should not endeavor to achieve material happiness. It will come. The lower animals have no business, no profession, but still they eat; they live. So Prahlad Maharaj says, You need not make your endeavor for achieving material pleasure. That will come. Because you have this body, it is predestined that this bodily enjoyment—as you are fit to enjoy—will come. How will it come? There is happiness and misery: If misery comes without calling for it, so happiness will come without calling for it. This is the philosophy.

Therefore, we should not be very anxious to aggravate or increase our material happiness. Always in civilization those who have no spiritual happiness are hankering after these sense enjoyments. So Prahlad Maharaj says, Your life is limited. Although it is very valuable, it is also very limited. And our duty is, in some way, to dovetail ourselves in Krishna Consciousness, and to act accordingly. You should not be very busy aggravating your material sense enjoyment. You cannot increase it. There are so many different kinds of body, and they are guided by Nature’s law: you have to eat like this, you have to live like this, you have to sleep like this—this is already arranged.

Our higher intelligence comes with this human body: we have higher consciousness. We should try for the higher enjoyment of life, which is spiritual enjoyment. And how can that spiritual enjoyment of life be achieved? You should not waste your time simply hankering after material enjoyment. Then, what is to be done? One should engage himself in the Supreme Lord, Who gives the pleasure of liberation. We should turn our attention to achieving the Lotus Feet of Krishna, Who can give us liberation from this material world.

How long do we have to engage ourselves? Prahlad Maharaj says, We are now in the material entanglement. This material entanglement is that I have this body. I will quit this body after a few years, and then I will have to accept another body. Once you take up one body and enjoy as your body’s senses dictate, then you prepare another body by such sense enjoyment; and you get another body as you want it. There is no guarantee that you will get a human body. That will depend on your work. Did you work just like a god? You get a god’s body. This is not in your hands; it is in the hands of Nature. Our duty is not to speculate on what we are going to get after what we have been—don’t take account of this. At the present moment, let us understand that we have this material body. Now if we want to have our spiritual consciousness or Krishna Consciousness developed then we should at once engage ourselves—dovetail ourselves—in this Krishna activity. That is auspicious for further progress of your life.

How long should you do it? So long as this body does not stop working. We do not know when it will stop functioning. The great saint, Parikshit Maharaj, got seven days notice: “Your body will fall in a week.” But we do not know when our body will fall. Just after going on the road, there may immediately be some accident. We should always be prepared that death is there. We should not be very optimistic that everyone is dying but I shall live. Why will you live if everyone is dying? Your father has died, your mother has died, your sister, your other relatives … why should you live? You will also die. And your children will also die.

Therefore, before death comes, so long as we have this human intelligence, let us engage in Krishna Consciousness. This is the prescription by Prahlad Maharaj.

This material body is called “purusam.” Everybody is anxious to enjoy. Purus means to enjoy, or enjoyer. There is nobody in this material world who does not like to enjoy sense gratification. Therefore, either male or female—the body may be what it is—but the desire, the ambition, is to enjoy material life. So it is called purusam.

We do not know when it will stop, but let us immediately engage in Krishna Consciousness and act according to that. And if I immediately engage myself in Krishna Consciousness, then what about my living? That arrangement is there. I am very happy to inform you that one of our students in a branch is so confident: there was some disagreement. One student said “You are not looking after how we will maintain the establishment,” and he replied, “Oh, Krishna will supply. ‘I take charge.’ ” This is a very nice conviction, it is very good; I was glad to hear it. If cats and dogs and hogs can get food, and we are going to be in Krishna Consciousness and fully devote our service to Krishna, will He not arrange my food also? Is Krishna so ungracious? No. He looks.

In the Bhagavad Gita you will find that the Lord says, “My dear Arjuna, I am equal to everyone. Nobody is the object of My envy and nobody is My special friend, but for one who is engaged in Krishna Consciousness, I have got special attention.” Just like a father whose small child is completely dependent on the mercy of the parents: The parents have special attention for that child. Although the parents are equally good to all the children, to the small children who are always asking, “Mother!” they have great concern. “Yes, my dear child? Yes?” This is natural.

If you are completely dependent on Krishna, He Who is supplying food to the dogs, birds, bees—to 8,400,000 species of life—why should He not supply to you? This conviction—this is called surrender. Not that, because Krishna is supplying my food, I shall now sleep. No, you have to work. One should engage himself in Krishna Consciousness—that is required.

Now calculate our duration of life. In this age it is calculated that we can live at most to a hundred years. Formerly, the human being used to live up to 100,000 years. In the Satya Yuga, or Age of Goodness, they used to live 100,000 years. In the next age, Treta Yuga, they used to live for 10,000 years, and in the next, called Dwapara Yuga, they used to live for 1,000 years. Now in this Age, called Kali Yuga, the estimation is for 100 years. But gradually, as the Kali Yuga progresses, we are reducing our duration still further. Anyone can understand that. Suppose my grandfather lived 100 years, my father lived for 90 years, so I am going to live for 70 years and my son is going to live for 50 years and his son is going to live for 30 years. This is the progress of our modern material civilization. And we are very proud that we are happy, and increasing our civilization. The result is that you come here to enjoy material life, and the duration of life is shortened. This is called Maya, Illusion.

Now accepting that we live for 100 years: Those who have no information of spiritual life, their life is reduced; and one who has not conquered sense enjoyment, or who is unable to control the mind, his age is also reduced. Those who are too much addicted to sense gratification, according to this calculation, their utmost life is 50 years. Even if he has 50 years, because he has no information of spiritual life, his night is wasted by sleeping and sex life. That’s all. He has no other business. And in the daytime, what is his business? “Where is money? Where is money? Because I must maintain this body.” And when he has money: “Now let me speed for my children, for my wife.” Then where is your spiritual realization? At night you spend your time in this way, and by day spend in this way—is that your mission of life? How horrible such a life is.

The average person is illusioned in childhood—playing football, sporting. Up to twenty years, easily, you can go on like that. Then when you become old, another twenty years you cannot do anything. When a man becomes old, then his senses cannot function. You have seen many old men; nothing to do, simply resting. Just now we have received a letter from our student that his grandmother is suffering for the last three and a half years, paralyzed. So in old age, everything is finished, as soon as you get sixty years old. Therefore, the beginning to twenty years is spoiled; and even if you live for a hundred years, another twenty in the last stage of life are also spoiled. So forty years of your life are spoiled in that way. And in the middle age there is very strong sex appetite: So another forty years can be lost. Forty years, twenty years, and twenty years—eighty years gone. How long are you going to live?

This is the analysis of life by Prahlad Maharaj. We are spoiling our life instead of using it.

Item 18 of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on birth control, “Humanae Vitae,” begins: “It can be foreseen that this teaching will perhaps not be easily received by all…” The Pope’s words have rung true, for his stand against “conjugal acts made intentionally infecund” goes directly counter to the grain of our licentious civilization. A storm of controversy has arisen, and the Pope has been widely denounced as a reactionary—all in the name, we take it, of the poor starving people of Peru and India.

The idea behind the birth control debate seems to be that it is wholly impractical to ask people to do something which they are determined not to do. We refer to the Pope’s admission that his stand “undoubtably requires ascetical practices” of his followers. Apparently no small number of people both Catholic and outside the Church were hoping to get a clear go-ahead on unlimited sense enjoyment without so much responsibility as a dignified cat or dog would accept. And the fact that they looked to the Pope for sanction in the first place indicates surprisingly abusive disrespect for his high office and person.

Whatever we may think of people who imagine that they can coerce their ways into the kingdom of God with placards and protest letters, we must wonder if it wouldn’t be more worthwhile for them to use such determination to follow their supposed leader rather then to oppose him? They might find themselves capable of far more asceticism than they thought. We also must wonder if these same people who ardently demonstrate for the Pill ever take such effort in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ—or in following its tenets themselves. But, as The Bhagavad Gita—one of the most authoritative of India’s Vedic Scriptures—states, passion has the power to steal intelligence away.

Sex life, according to the Vedic wisdom, is the greatest cause of material bondage because it is the greatest pleasure of material life. Therefore it must be restricted, and the restriction is to marry and to have sex only for the purpose of generating children. Furthermore, these children are not meant to be mere products of lust—which is called demoniac birth—but should be conceived with the full loving intention to deliver them into the hands of God so that they can have liberation from the bondage of material Nature. The Christian doctrine is clearly identical in its essentials, although there are several minor points of difference along the way.

To say that people will not follow such a teaching cannot refute the teaching itself. Krishna, or God, is not relative but Absolute. His doctrines and rules—such as the restrictions on sex life—are not meant to take all the fun out of life; the rules are meant as guideposts to help the conditioned soul reach his ultimate destination, the confrontation by direct experience with the Absolute Truth. One may follow or ignore the guidepost as he chooses—but if he wants to reach the goal, common sense will force him to follow it. Nor will a democratic consensus change the way, any more than a Gallup poll could put New York City on the West Coast.

The path of sin means any path which does not lead to knowledge of Krishna. Sin has no other meaning. And virtue, or saintliness, means any course of thought or action which will lead to Krishna. The center, the criterion, then, is Krishna—God. Those who are so intent today upon changing all the rules have apparently lost sight of this. Until God returns as the only and absolute center of gravity in their lives, nothing that they do can be considered worthwhile or happy, be it with or without ecclesiastical approval. And if Krishna is placed at that center, then even the most rigorous asceticism will be joyful and will lead them to fulfillment. It is not a question of how much sex one is allowed to have, but of how much one wants God.

_______________________________

Another part of the same message by the Pope is well worth noting:

On this occasion, we wish to draw the attention of educators, and of all who perform duties of responsibility in regard to the common good of human society, to the need of creating an atmosphere favorable to education in chastity, that is, to the triumph of healthy liberty over license by means of respect for the moral order.

The main reason why it appears impractical to ask people to practice sexual abstinence today is that the modern social atmosphere is literally drenched in sexual stimuli. This is because sex sells anything, and our upright businessman’s world will do anything to sell, however degrading or depraved it may be.

If children are raised in a moral, religious atmosphere and are not hounded and battered by sex-sale gimmicks throughout their lives, then restraint will not be difficult for them as they grow older. But if sensual connotations pervade their minds almost from the very moment of birth, then they will necessarily crave sex to an exaggerated degree from the earliest point of puberty and even earlier.

Today’s bold and daring underground revolutionaries whose stock-in-trade is primarily sex—and who proclaim themselves liberated because of their sexual “frankness”—do not realize that they are actually only displaying the chains placed upon their minds from birth by a rapaciously greedy industrial society, one which has trained its every facility—from movies, magazines, television and comics to subway ads and public health services—upon them to induce them to buy, buy, buy.

And the so-called generation gap is nothing more than the magnitude of hypocrisy exhibited by those who have created this hellish atmosphere in expressing surprise at its effects. As The Holy Bible says, the sins of the father are visited upon the son.

If human civilization is to endure at all, there must be a radical alteration of this pattern of indoctrination—through-sex into limitless consumption. This is a problem which today’s public-spirited governments and philanthropic groups might take up to actually benefit mankind. But it is more likely they will prefer the Pill to any real solution of our human ills—and will push ahead as busily as possible to create their Utopian world of sub-human industrial sex-slaves. All in the name, to be sure, of freedom.

The reader may note that, with only a few exceptions, the names of those who produce and contribute to BACK TO GODHEAD are, to say the least, not Anglo-Saxon. The reason for this is that they are spiritual names, awarded to his disciples by the Spiritual Master at initiation.

Krishna, the Supreme Lord, is described in the Vedic Scriptures as having innumerable Names, each of Which is fully as powerful as God Himself. Being transcendental to material Nature, and non-dual, God and His Names are not separable. Thus the Name of God is God, and God is His Name. This is the spiritual significance of the Maha Mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. By singing God’s Names, one comes into actual direct contact with God, and in this way one’s consciousness can be purified of its false material associations.

Aside from Krishna—Who is the Original Godhead—the Lord has many, many other Names, some of Which are found in Vedic literature, such as Madhusudana, Narayana, Damodar, Vishnu, and so on. When a student takes formal initiation under the guidance of a Spiritual Master, the latter gives him a Name of the Lord, followed by the word “das”—the servant of.

Spiritual initiation means the actual beginning of spiritual life—real life—and so the spiritual name awarded at that time is the real name of the pupil from that moment onward.

Names of very great devotees and saints are also sometimes awarded, such as Rayarama, who was a disciple of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Madhavendra, who was Lord Chaitanya’s grand-Spiritual Master. This is, of course, quite like the Christian tradition of naming children after the saints at baptism, except that spiritual initiation must be chosen freely by the pupil—normally after a period of preliminary study with the Guru. And spiritual initiation must be asked for by the pupil, never vice versa.

It should be noted that these Names of God are not Indian, though they are known and revered particularly in that country. The Lord appeared many times in India, but He is no more a product or property of India than is the Sun of the East, where it first appears. Lord Jesus Christ, in the same sense, can not be held as a Judaean god or culture figure.

Nor does the acceptance of the spiritual name imply Indianization on the part of the pupil. The process of spiritual realization entails the rejection of all material and bodily designations such as nationalism, sectarian religious faith, sex, race, or social status. The Names of Krishna, being transcendental and sublime, have nothing whatever to do with locality or era.

The word “brahmachary,” signifying a knower or pursuant of Brahman, the Absolute, is given to denote an unmarried student living a regulated, celibate life of full service to the Spiritual Master. “Adhikary” denotes a married man. And the words “devi dasi” denote women, either married or not.

is published monthly by ISKCON Press, an organ of The International Society For Krishna Consciousness. Editorial offices: 243 East Tenth street, New York, New York 10003. All material copyright© 1968, ISKCON Press.

MANAGING EDITOR: Rayarama Das Brahmachary

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Madhusudan Das Brahmachary

Jairama Das Brahmachary

Jayadvaita Das Brahmachary

William Burke

RESEARCH EDITOR: Nayana Bhiram Das Brahmachary

ART DIRECTOR: Damodar Das Adhikary

PRODUCTION CHIEF: Brahmananda Das Brahmachary

ADVERTISING: Purushottam Das Brahmachary

__________________________________

__________________________________________

THE BOOK (ON THE TABOO AGAINST KNOWING WHO YOU ARE)

by Alan W. Watts; 148 pps. Collier Books, 95 cents.

THE BOOK purports to be a reinterpretation of Vedanta, one of the ancient Scriptures of India. This is necessarily like re-writing The Bible, and it wouldn’t be possible not to come up with at least a few solid statements of deathless value.

However, being an interpretation rather than a presentation, and being full to the brim with independent speculations, THE BOOK often fails to serve any valid purpose. In its negative principles, it does stand up well. Alan Watts does tell us quite a bit about the taboo against knowing who you are. And when he stays close to his title in this way he has something to say. It is only when he goes on to try positive concepts that he becomes elusive.

He says, for instance, that there is, after all, no reason to awaken from illusion anyway. Knowledge and ignorance, life and death, pleasure and pain are all parts of a “game”—the Game of Black-and-White—which the One Being is playing with Himself. But this would leave no reason for THE BOOK to have been written, and so Mr. Watts tells us “that it is part of ‘things taking their course’ that I write.” After which, all criticism is apparently expected to die down with a bewildered “Oh.”

But this dodge is really insufficient to justify either THE BOOK or the philosophy behind it. It is, in fact, the sort of thing one might expect to hear from a slick Uptown Swami after a clever but self-defeating lecture on Oneness, rather than from a renowned thinker of a more serious order. The idea that God, or the Absolute, or whatever, is so limited that He must create agony and stupidity to keep Himself amused—while any one of us could probably do better—is really both naive and absurd. Again, Mr. Watts advises us to remember that this is only a way of putting it, not the real thing exactly. Exactly what the real thing is he doesn’t say.

After politely leaving aside this flaw, if we plunge along into THE BOOK, we’ll come to some very nice passages in which the writer has outlined the endless complications of materialistic existence. He tells us about college administrations and their troubles (an interesting critique in that THE BOOK is copyrighted 1966, and therefore in some ways prophesies the events of this year); he tells us how difficult it is to take a walk in these days of police-state-ism; how society has ganged up together to agree to accept falsehood as truth—and how in this way modern man has become divided against both himself and his environment.

But once more, the positive side of all this just doesn’t stand scrutiny, for all the twistings and turnings of the author’s reasoning. The basic concept of identity to which Mr. Watts points is Oneness—everything is one, and cause and effect are simply manifestations of that same one, are themselves one, and thus there really is no cause and effect: things just take their course. This is a philosophy dear especially to the debauched, degraded and depraved of every generation—not only today, but as far back as Rome, Egypt, and before even that. By this philosophy, no sin or crime, no evil or shortcoming need be accounted for. It simply happens, takes place, and no one is to blame . All is One, so who could be blamed ?

Yet this is always a philosophy by which none can actually live. It’s a mental exercise, an excuse for atrocities at worst, a parlor conversation ploy at best—never a philosophy of life. No one steps before an onrushing train, careless of death, and simply shrugs, “It’s all One.” Even Mr. Watts must cross at the green if he wants to enjoy his royalties. No one wears a cotton boll in place of a cotton shirt, on the consideration that there is no cause and effect. Even the author has to make concessions here: “The point is not that we should forthwith abandon penicillin or DDT [i.e., in abandoning our attempt to conquer Nature]: it is that we should fight to check the enemy, not to eliminate him.”

In other words, don’t take your troubles or triumphs too seriously, but go on with them anyway. Don’t try to make a permanent solution. “We must learn to include ourselves in the round of cooperations and conflicts, of symbiosis and preying, which constitutes the balance of nature…” he writes; and yet, wouldn’t we be the only species who didn’t take it all seriously? And wouldn’t that be just as absurd as attempting totally to subdue Nature? What is lacking here is an understanding of the fact that what specifically qualifies human consciousness and sets it apart from that of the beasts is its very ability to seek out a final solution—its determination to pursue and uncover the Absolute, or God. And if modern man has gone mad, it is because he is attempting to find that solution through the exploitation of material Nature, rather than through the development of spiritual life. To abandon the pursuit of a solution wholly is simply another form of defeat.

The advice that we should take things as they come is, in itself, no more than any backyard washerwoman would say after hearing of her neighbor’s arthritis, old age and abuses.

And the idea of Oneness never will explain how all these varieties we experience came about, or what to do with them.

This goes even further into the realm of the absurd when the author quotes Erwin Schrodinger as saying that, “eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.” But the present keeps changing here in this material world, and even though it has no end, it certainly isn’t always the same. Therefore, to adjust the mind to such a concept of non-differentiation is not to approach reality but, rather, to ignore the world as it is. And, even if the world is only an illusion, then that illusion itself, with all its varieties, still must require an explanation.

According to the actual Vedic sources, the material world with its varieties is illusory in that it is temporary. The real or spiritual world is eternal. But still, the material does exist. It exists as the reflection of the real, perverted through the individual’s deluded consciousness. And, just as a mirror cannot show even false grapes without real grapes existing, so this material illusion can only reflect actual varieties. And, in the same sense, ego—one’s sense of individuality—is only a reflection of actual and immortal individuality, which exists in the spiritual world, in the Kingdom of God.

That there are varieties—blues, reds, yellows, ups and downs, ins and outs, I’s and Thou’s—which never disappear or are corrupted—essences, in other words—is perhaps inconceivable to the mundane intellect; but it is the very dependence upon mundane intellectual scholarship which is the basic fault in Alan Watts’ writings from beginning to end.

The Vedic system, along with all authentic Scriptural systems of God realization, enjoins strict and rigorous personal discipline upon those who wish to understand the Truth. Simply to read some words in a book without comprehending the practical facts by realization is incomplete, and must lead to the sort of distortions and contradictions of which THE BOOK is guilty. Truth must be perceived and manifested on three levels: in the mind, in the speech, and in action. Unless all three are absorbed in the Absolute, then realization, the direct personal experience of the existence of the Absolute, cannot be had.

It is by service to a spiritual master who is himself realized in a particular study or discipline that one is able to advance in understanding, just as an apprentice learns from a master, rather than from a manual. Without this service and without the guidance of a realized soul, no valid comprehension can be attained. The purely scholastic approach has been likened to bees licking on the outside of a bottle of honey: they may see it and smell it, but they can’t really taste it, and so fail to get satisfaction. To go on blithely reading books which are crying out for you to engage your activities in spiritual life, and then to write your own theses about them, while never having followed their injunctions, is the height of arrogant foolishness.

Yet this would seem to be Mr. Watts’ system, and he writes off as “myth” any passages that might tend to disturb him or his readers into active commitment.

Again we’re left with nothing to live by. When THE BOOK has been read, it can be forgotten without loss or bother, for it has said nothing. Again, the author is aware of his own shortcomings, and so he has slipped in a chapter called “So What?”

But “So What?” is also just a dodge. Its principal passage reads: “If, then, after understanding, at least in theory, that the ego-trick is a hoax and that, beneath everything, ‘I’ and ‘universe’ are one, you ask, ‘So what? What is the next step, the practical application?’—I will answer that the absolutely vital thing is to consolidate your understanding, to become capable of enjoyment, of living in the present, and of the discipline which this involves.”

Whatever “consolidate your understanding” may mean, becoming capable of enjoyment is no stranger to us. The only trouble is that everyone is already trying to enjoy in one way or another, from the President down to the neighborhood street sweeper—and yet no one is succeeding. Simply to tell people that they must learn to enjoy might make you popular, but it isn’t a “practical application” after all. How to enjoy remains the real problem.

Bind and double bind, triple bind, quadruple bind—they weave themselves like the glittering tentacles of a fabulous serpent throughout the mental corridors of THE BOOK. We’re told that, to enjoy, we must stop trying to enjoy. But that takes an effort too—that’s also trying to enjoy. And trying not to make an effort not to try to enjoy…? So it goes on, the mind twists on through the labyrinths of illusion, seeking an out, but never finding more than a new path that brings us back to the old starting point: you are not this body. Negative and true.

But for the positive, we’ll all be better off if we turn to the real Vedanta Itself. For there, and in the associated Vedic Scriptures, positive statements are made very succinctly by great sages who actually lived with their minds, words and deeds fixed on God, on the Supreme Transcendence. You are not this body, they agree. You are spirit soul—Absolute—Brahman. They also say this, and they say it in a straight-forward fashion. And there is Param Brahman, a Supreme Spirit, as well.

As for knowing one’s absolute or spiritual nature in full, the sages tell us to find a realized spiritual master, submit to him, serve him and inquire of him regarding Truth. He, being in knowledge, can reveal and explain, and can offer the example of perfection by his own life.

Alongside this, how involved and subtle the writings of Mr. Watts necessarily appear. One almost gets the impression that, above all else, his interest is to avoid criticism; and perhaps this explains the vagueness and negativity of his approach, like a wounded man waving his sword to confuse his enemy in hopes of avoiding a blow, but never of delivering one.

Mr. Watts further displays a surprising ignorance of the principles of devotional service when, on page 79, he states that the idea that everything belongs to God and should be used for God is a kind of stewardship, based on the hope of future reward. For it is devotion itself, manifested in this world as loving service to God, which is the topmost perfection of human consciousness, and of life. There is, in authentic devotional circles, no question of reward greater than love of God itself.

Turn from this, Mr. Watts advises us, because the individual ego is a hoax perpetrated upon us by the ignorant. And turn from the Void concept as well—that also is illusion. Approach life with “the fullest collaboration with the world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts—based on the realization that the only real ‘I’ is the whole endless process.” Again, if you’ll pardon our bluntness, So What? The words sound meaningful, and yet there seems to be something missing: the meaning itself. On and on, Mr. Watts offers mental adjustments which will, supposedly, make you happy. Like weight-watching, if you tend toward materialistic fads, you can give THE BOOK a try. But it doesn’t promise to offer anything final. Death is still there, life is still there, unfulfilled.

Perhaps the words of Sri Shankara Acharya, who also invented an interpretation of the Vedanta many hundreds of years ago, and who is still widely renowned for his gigantic scholarship, will best serve to cap off our consideration of THE BOOK. He wrote:

You intellectual fools I Just worship Govinda [Krishna]! Just worship Govinda! Just worship Govinda! Your grammatical knowledge and word jugglery will not save you at the time of death!

When a man enters the room of a friend, the friend receives the man with all cordiality, and offers him the best couch for his comfort. The friend may accept this welcome and sit along with his host in all security. Does this mean that the man who has entered the house of his friend should consider the sitting room to be his own property? Certainly, he will not think so unless he has gone mad. Still, his consciousness of the fact that none of the paraphernalia of the friend’s sitting room belongs to him does not disturb him in the least in sitting down securely. With this pure consciousness of facility, along with his friend who is actually the proprietor of the sitting room, he is comfortable.

But if the man, after some time, madly thinks that because he was allowed to enter into the parlor of his friend he has therefore become its proprietor—then what will be his lot? The natural consequence of this unlawful desire of the intruding friend will be police action, instigated by the real proprietor of the room, and trouble will disrupt the friendly relationship. And if the man then leaves the room, being unable to occupy it as his own, and impertinently tells his friend that he is renouncing the right of proprietorship in disgust—certainly the proprietor friend will laugh at him, wondering when and how the proprietorship of the room could have been awarded to the intruder in the first place.

This is the real position of the conditioned soul who enters into any given position of life in the cycle of birth and death. The living entity simply changes his dress according to the price of the dress he has paid for. In the shop of material Nature there are 8,400,000 different types of dresses, and the living entity is allowed to put on any one of them according to the price he is able to pay.

Leaving aside all other dresses, let us consider the dress of the human body. In the dress of the human body a living entity is more puzzled than in the dress of the beast, due to the particular garment. The dress of the human body is also exhibited in 400,000 varieties, or species. There are many different dresses of humanity, and almost all of them are no more civilized than the jungle beasts. As such, they have very little idea of the civilized form of national sentiment.

Out of the 8,400,000 different dresses exhibited by the living entities, only the highest civilized human being is conscious of national feeling. This national feeling has created the different civilized nations of the world, but because almost every one of those nations is guided by the sense of nationalism through impure rather than pure consciousness, they are always busy making pacts and blocs for the security of each one’s position.

The impure consciousness of nationalism has kept all the big heads of the world’s nations ever active for an amicable adjustment of everyone’s national interest. They have now made a United Nations Security Council, and are trying in vain to find the right adjustment. The impure consciousness of every nation has made it impossible to come to the safety point, and what is needed, therefore, is to awaken pure consciousness by the propagation of spiritual education, leading back to Godhead. This work was undertaken by the Lord Himself in the Form of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

What is pure consciousness? The idea of pure consciousness is specifically described in the Scripture called Ishopanishad, where it is said:

Everything that we see in this material world or in matter belongs to the domain of the Supreme Lord. You can therefore enjoy what has been offered to you by Him, but you must not accept any other’s property.

The living entity, in any of the above-mentioned eighty-four hundred thousand varieties of dresses, enters into the domain of the Lord. The agent of the lord, material Nature, gives him all facilities to live in that domain, and provides him with all the comforts of air, light, shelter, food, drink, residence, and all facilities for acquiring knowledge. The lower grade living beings, such as the aquatics, the plants and trees, the reptiles, birds, beasts and beastly human beings living in the jungle take all the facilities offered by Nature, and make progressive evolution by a gradual process: From aquatics to plant life, from plant to reptile, from reptile to bird, from bird to beast. The human form of life is evolved out of the life of the beast.

As guests of the material Nature, all these non-human living entities do not bother much about conventional civilization, and do not mishandle the products of material Nature . But civilized man, because of his developed consciousness, can and does mishandle the laws of Nature, thinking in terms of proprietorship over his particular place of appearance (country, city, etc.), and thus becomes entangled in the matter of designations. Civilized man thus makes an error in the name of advanced civilization. These civilized nations forget completely that the particular places offered to them for residential purposes all belong to the proprietorship of the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord is the proprietor of all the “Lokas,” or planets. In The Bhagavad Gita Krishna makes this statement:

I am the Beneficiary of all sacrifices and penances, and I am the Supreme Lord of all the planets and universes. I am the benevolent friend of all living beings, and, when knowing this, one can enjoy perfect peace.

The so-called civilized nations have forgotten the fact that the places of residence particularly specified for them by the Supreme Lord do not belong to them, but remain the property of the Supreme Lord. He has given the nations particular places of residence and comfortable life in order to make progress in the matter of pure consciousness. The Lord has not allowed us to remain in such places simply to create a hell by developing a training ground for hooligans, ruffians, demons and unbelievers. He is the Supreme Friend of all living entities, and therefore He has made the codes of Scripture, such as the Vedas and Puranas, to guide the civilized nations. Without such codes, they may become diverted by the influence of Maya, or impure consciousness, to consider the places of their appearance to be their own property.

The particular place of residence allotted to us must be protected from the disturbing forces of demons and nonbelievers—not as the proprietors of the land, but with full consciousness of servitorship toward the Supreme Lord.

Out of an impure consciousness, Sri Arjuna—in the epic of the Mahabharata—declined to fight on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. He forgot for the time being that he was not the proprietor. The Supreme Proprietor is Sri Krishna, and Arjuna is only a servitor. This fact was explained in The Bhagavad Gita from different angles of vision, and ultimately, when the illusion of proprietorship was dissipated, the pure consciousness of Arjuna was awakened by the mercy of the Lord, and Arjuna agreed to abide by the order of the Supreme Lord. His attitude of nonviolence, adulterated with a sense of proprietary right, was condemned by Sri Krishna at the very inception of the idea. It is sheer nonsense to conceive of the devotees of Godhead as so many inert elements within society. Real devotees of the Lord, like Sri Hanuman (of the Ramayana) are neither violent nor nonviolent on their own account—but they can be both violent and nonviolent in the service of the Lord. This is the criterion of pure consciousness.

Nationalism in pure consciousness, as it was exemplified by Sri Arjuna and Hanuman, brings in real peace to the world. Such pure consciousness is aroused by devotional activities. Unbelievers in the supremacy of the Absolute Lord cannot have pure consciousness. Nationalism, however, guided by the principles of devotional service—of which Sri Arjuna presented the typical example—is the goal of our life. [END]

Written by Satsvarupa das brahmachary

Illustrated by Jadurany Devi Dasi

Lettered by Madhusudan das brahmachary

Narada: Who has done this to one of the Lord's creatures?........ some fool has committed this awful sin and he will have to pay for it!........... Others! And they are all half alive!................. Who could have done this wrong?..................... Some soul is preparing a dark future for himself by inflicting such pain on these animals! (Caption shows Narada finding the hunter. Thinks the following:) At each step the horror grows greater!......... Ah! Here is the wretch—a hunter!............ This man is crazed! I must speak some sense to him!

Mrigari: Ha! Another deer is about to fall by the arrow of Mrigari—the enemy of the beasts!

Mrigari: What's that sound? What's happening?......... My animals! They're gone!

Narada: Hunter! I have come to you!

Mrigari: Who are you? I've never seen anyone like you! What have you done to me? (Caption shows Mrigari facing Narada. Thinks the following:) Never in my life have I felt such a sweet sensation! My heart grows.. light!.................. This must be some truly saintly person!......... Though I am still Mrigari—I cannot hold an ill thought against him!

Narada: I am Narada and I have come to ask if you can help me find my way!

Mrigari: And I am Mrigari! And you have just ruined my kill!................. They have all escaped! Why did you do it?

Narada: As I was coming down the path, I saw the creatures kicking with pain! Who has done these sinful acts?

Mrigari: Sinful acts?? Why, what you saw was quite all right! It was done by me!

Narada: You half killed this poor rabbit, and say it's all right?................ If you want to hunt the animals, why don't you kill them at once? ................Don't you know that when you half kill them you cause them great pain?

Mrigari: What's the difference, my lord? Besides, my father taught me this! Why, when I see a wounded rabbit flapping, it gives me great pleasure!

Narada: Hunter, I beg of you one thing—and please say you will grant it!

Mrigari: Yes—anything! I have never met anyone as wonderful as you!...................Would you like a pelt? Come on—come to my house! I'll give you deer, tiger—whatever you want is yours! Just continue to speak with me!

Narada: I don't want such things! What I want is this: please don't half kill the animals anymore! To kill them out right is bad enough!

Mrigari: Kill—half kill! What is the difference, my lord?

Narada: Hear me, or Hunter! All the pains that you give to these poor animals, you will have to suffer, pain by pain, one after another—in your future lives!

Mrigari: "Will I suffer for every deer I've left groaning.....?" (The caption now shows Mrigari being attacked by the deers he has killed)

Deer: Yes, Mrigari! The soul does not die? It travels from body to body!.............. We animals are still angry! And now you can taste what you once give us—

Deer 2: My iron horns!

Deer 3: My club!

Mrigari: "Will I suffer for every boar I've run through with a pole?" (The caption now shows Mrigari being attacked by the boars he has killed)

Boar: Poles—and arrows, O enemy of the beasts!

Boar 2: You shot me in the back—while I was enjoying the sunshine!

Boar 3: Mrigari! Remember one baby for—on the outskirts of Priya? It was like this!

Boars 1-3: Every soul whose body you have killed may return and do the same to you!

Mrigari: "For every rabbit I've shot at?.........." (The caption now shows Mrigari with a rabbit at his ear)

Rabbit: Remember? You left me shafted between the shoulders!........ You said "What's wrong? I did this! It's all right! What sinful?" ........ Remember, Mrigari?

Mrigari: "It cannot be so!" (The caption now shows a huge lion grabbing Mrigari's head)

Narada: "But it is! You have to face the reaction for each and every sinful deed!"

Mrigari: O, master! How can I get rid of all these offences?........ I surrender at your feet! Please—save me from the reactions that are awaiting me!.......... just direct me!

Narada: I can tell you the real path—if you want to follow!

Mrigari: Yes! Whatever—I won't hesitate!

Narada: Then break your bow, and I will then disclose it to you!

Mrigari: My past deeds are like bad ominous dreams! Now at last I'm awake! ............ But how can I ever break all my bad habits?

Narada: O Mrigari—you will see! Krishna is very kind—He will give you all facility to come to Him! You have sincerely surrendered—and that is enough!

Wife: Now you make the joyful! What you speak to me of Narada—what you do—this is freedom!.......... Only now have we become more than just another pair of forest animals!

Mrigari: Come! Assist me in carrying out the order of my spiritual master!.............. Join me, my dear one, and taste this sweet devotional service which Narada has given us!

(The caption now shows Mrigari's wife in conversation with some of the village women)

Village woman: From our windows we used to see your husband stalking in the woods—covered with blood and cursing!

Village woman 2: Now his face has such a lustre? And he's so joyful... And calm.

Wife: It is all Narada's grace! See this Tulasi plant?............ My husband has heard from Narada that if we simply water this tree we will be purified because the Tulasi is beloved by God himself!

Village elder: Have you seen Mrigari?

Villager: Yes—and he is no fraud!............. He understands everything! I tell you we're fortunate just to know him whose spiritual master is Narada!

Village woman: All glories to you, good friend! We can no longer call you enemy of the beasts.

Villager: We'll call you Sage! Here is some food we'd like to offer you, O sage!

Mrigari: Please—call me the pupil of Narada! I am nothing else!

(The caption now shows devotees chanting in ecstasy)

Devotee: Hari vol!

Devotee 2: Hari Hari vol!

Narada: I have a disciple living nearby in these woods, Parbut! Let's stop in and see how he's doing!

Parbut: I'm always happy to see a devotee of Lord Krishna! Lead the way, my good Narada!

Wife: Mrigari! Mrigari! Look!

Mrigari: Yes—yes! I see them! My spiritual master has come!

Mrigari: (Thinks the following) Ants! I almost crushed them!

Mrigari: Dear brothers, don't fear—I shall not harm even one of you!

Narada: All glories to you, Mrigari! You are a good devotee!

Parbut: It is truly wonderful how a devotee of the Lord will not give pain even to the ant!

Mrigari: Please accept my obeisances, Guruji—Holy Sir! I would prostrate myself before you, but I see many ants here, and I cannot cause them pain!........... Here, let me remove them with my cloth!

Narada: Is everything all right, my boy?

Mrigari: Oh, yes, Gurudeva! See how nicely the Tulasi has grown?

Wife: Holy Narada! Please come and take prasadam with us!

Parbut: You have a very nice place here! I can see that you have greatly improved, and I'm very pleased by your ardent service!

Mrigari: Sir, as you are a friend of Narada's you must know we are always in bliss from chanting this Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna—this mantra given us by Narada!................. You must know how sweet this chanting is—so that we are always singing the names of Krishna!

The ex-hunter and his wife begin to feel ecstasy—and they give vent to their feelings by chanting... (The caption now shows Mrigari and his wife dancing and chanting)

Narada: All glories to the assembled devotees!............ All glories to Sri Sri Radha Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead!

Parbut: Narada, you are truly a touchstone!............ Just by your association, you have given this lowly wretch of a hunter the highest perfection of human life—love of God!

Narada: Are you getting enough food, my boy?

Mrigari: Oh, yes master! I have enough to feed twenty people daily!

Narada: That's all right! Then just carry on your devotional service as you are doing—you and your good wife Krishna will bless you and make you happy!

(The caption now shows Narada & Parbut departing and Lord Krishna blessing Mrigari's hermitage)

Mrigari: The great sages may speak of Krishna, who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead! And the demigods may know Krishna, who is the supreme controller! ............. But I cannot know Krishna! So far as I am concerned, I can only worship my spiritual master, who has opened my eyes from the darkness of ignorance, by his divine mercy!

The End

Recently, some college students ardently proclaimed a certain comic book writer to be their modern mythmaker, in honor of his exciting and weird superhero tales. This proclamation led me to reflect that, after all, a myth is supposed to be something that people believe in, or once did. My Webster’s Dictionary defines the word like this: “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people, or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon … an ill-founded belief held uncritically especially by an interested group.”

Clearly comic book stories don’t fit this definition because they never pretend to be, or to have been, real. They are tales, but not exactly myths. If we want to consider the actual mythology of modern times, we have to look into the present beliefs which are “held uncritically” by modern man. There are many such beliefs, and the strongest and most fixed would seem to be typified by the commercial slogan: “Doctors recommend.” For this is the Day of Science. Science rules supreme in judgement and in reverence over civilized man’s every thought, word and deed, just as the oracles, omens and stars once influenced the lives of the Babylonians and Greeks. In education, for example, tremendous amounts of money are going towards scientific research, to the almost utter neglect of other areas of learning. In fact, many large corporations find that their top scientific minds can’t write reports in simple intelligible English.

In an article entitled ‘The Humanist Heartbeat Has Failed,” in the May 24, 1968 issue of LIFE, Professor James H. Billington remarks that. “A paltry one out of every thousand dollars of government funds given for basic research in 1966 went to the humanities. The much smaller amount given by private foundations to support research and teaching was some 23 times greater in the sciences than in the humanities.” These are big odds, and it isn’t rash to draw the conclusion that science is today valued above all other studies and pursuits.

Science itself, of course, is neither bad nor good. It is a tool, like a scalpel: and if it’s used for cutting throats instead of cancers, the fault lies in the heart and mind of the man—or men—who are controlling it. Science—the attempt to comprehend and adjust to, or control, material Nature—has accomplished some nice feats: disease control, communications, heating, transportation. It would be as senseless to condemn these things as it would be to put a scalpel on trial for murder. At the same time, it would be equally senseless to laud these things as though they had given life some meaning, as though they had contributed to any real advancement in the human condition of consciousness. This would be like awarding the Nobel Prize to an iron lung.

All who live must die—even the Universe itself lives and dies—and so to prolong life is not to insure it against the end. “Death comes when it will come,” and even the greatest scientific genius cannot hold life longer than his due. Some years ago the foremost physicist of India died in a simple plane crash—and all the inventions of science (including the plane itself) proved of no avail to him.

So it is not to avoid death that we should work, but to instill into what life we have some real quality—to use this life well and wisely. Otherwise it is a living death, even at its best. According to the great Scriptures of the world—the Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita, and others—the highest perfection of human life is reached in confrontation with God, followed by submission, love, and eternal association. Eternal association means that, in awakening to the existence and love of God, the living being becomes freed from the entanglements and designations of the material world, of which the body and its attendant annihilation are primary.

It would seem a simple matter to recognize the fact that life without goals, life without quality, life without value—is quite like the life of a machine. It is robot life. And an educational system which is devoted to fitting the human mind for a specified place in the modern machine complex is a school for the living dead. And, as I will try to prove, the replacement of God by evolution in the modern school system, and thereby in the thinking processes of modern man, has produced only zombies. But with one flaw: human beings don’t like to act the part of zombies, and the alternative is likely to be revolt, corruption, and the ruin of what civilization we have.

Instead of pleasing God, modern children are taught to “please evolution,” as it were. They are taught that the human race was thrown up out of Chaos by blind chance (“or God, if you like,” the teachers used to tell us. I don’t know if they can still say things like that in an American public school). Blind chance may just as easily throw us away again, and so the obvious necessity in the grim struggle for survival is to find a way to defeat both blind chance and all other competing species at the same time. Thus, we are taught, Mankind has constructed society, and society has so far proved the most effective step toward permanence that evolution has ever taken.

Society in this sense means the banding together of creatures of like mentality and structure for the purpose of prolonging the lives of the individuals of the community or species. This is done, apparently, by crippling, castrating or annihilating all other species of life. It is a concept of sophisticated bestiality, more ferocious in both fact and theory than the ravages of plague or the march of an ant army. And it is based on ignorance as utter as that of an ant—no, more profound yet, because the ant is at least acting as an ant. The human consciousness is capable of “graduating” from the school of evolution into the “workaday” world of spiritual life, and unless it is used in this way, it’s not human at all.

And the great ignorance here is the idea that killing other creatures, or trying to control the intricate functions of Nature, will lead to eternal existence either for oneself or one’s race or species. This is like trying to tune in a television station on a radio receiver. The body is product of material Nature, and the first law of Nature is change. Therefore the body, in one form or another, must die. It is only the soul—or consciousness, if you like—which goes on, because this consciousness, in its purified state, is independent of Nature.

These attempts at prolonging life and putting off death are reflections of the irrepressible tendency of all forms of life to gravitate toward immortality. This is because of the eternal nature of the soul, which inhabits each living form. The form is temporary, but the soul is not, and it is trying, in ignorance, to get back to its original position. And, in its ignorance, the struggle for survival, the competition with other life forms, goes on, and consumes the energy, the attention, the hopes of the creature, until it dies and takes a new body, to try again.

Now the difficulty in trying to “please evolution”—that is, develop oneself so that the race, if not the individual, can continue to survive—is that no one really knows what will work and what won’t in the long run. Many a modern moralist has tried to construct an ethical system on such foundations, but the fact that evolution remains a theory, remains uncertain in so very many of its details, must frustrate every effort at coherence and consistency. No one knows what activities of the human race will “eliminate it from evolution,” as Lecomte de Nouy has rephrased sin. And no one knows what activities will help it to survive. There are no known principles here, the theories of life origins change almost monthly, and so the attempt to establish a “moral” system, or any system whatever, must come to nil.

Morality means how to act towards some goal. But if the goal is unknown, uncertain, untried, unstable, and unfriendly—then where is the scope for a workable morality? And yet, without morality, without mutually agreed-upon patterns of behavior, society cannot exist. And society, we have been told, “pleases evolution”—it will help us to survive .

So we come to a double bind, an irreconcilable fault in the whole scheme of materialistic moralizing. We are trying to “please evolution” without knowing what it wants.

That there is evolution, and that there is a goal, an end, to the process, is not refuted here. In fact, the concept of evolution can be found in The Padma Purana, one of the Vedic Scriptures of vast antiquity. In this Purana, it is stated that the living forms in this Universe first arose as the aquatic animals, then evolved to the land vegetables, then on to reptiles, insects, birds, beasts and, at the end, humans. Even the most skeptical scholar cannot date The Padma Purana later than a good many hundred years before Darwin, and so this is a surprising example of scientific theory very slowly catching up to what was already presented by revelation long ago.

Evolution, according to the Vedas, is the process of the gradual development of consciousness from body to body, until the civilized human form is reached. Development of consciousness means that consciousness is more comprehensive, not merely different: a tree may experience the warmth of the sunlight and the cold of the night, but he will never experience running or jumping. The human, however, experiences in principle all that the tree has known, and more. In this way complete consciousness, or the perfection of conscious development, means to experience the sum total, the Absolute Truth. And the Absolute Truth is God.

So the goal of evolution is for the living being, after innumerable lifetimes of experience within body after body (The Padma Purana lists 8, 400, 000 species), to come to an awareness of his actual, transcendental position in relationship to Krishna, the Godhead. This direction of development, then, is “natural.” It is the obvious and intended course of progress for the human life form. All other life forms are only like the grades in a school, leading to the senior year. And, from that senior grade, one is expected to go forward out of school, not merely to remain fixed, or even to fall behind.

Because the human life form is possessed of this advanced consciousness, it is “natural” for human beings to seek a direction, a way out of the struggle for survival, a solution to the riddle of immortality vs. death. One cannot, as so many philosophers would like to, blunt off the edge of this sword of awareness, become directionless, and at the same time find happiness. For happiness means fulfillment, and fulfillment for human life means the attainment of complete consciousness, unaffected by the conditions of time or Nature. This is the ultimate perfection. And, I must restate for emphasis, the drive toward this perfection is “natural” in man.

Now, the general drift of materialistic civilization has always been toward the fulfillment of these same drives, but through the exploitation of Nature rather than through the development of spiritual consciousness. The discovery and development of the theory of evolution is, after all, only an outgrowth of man’s attempt to achieve immortality and full knowledge on his own. This exploitation of Nature, however, always leads to frustration. Take nuclear energy for an example: along with all the promise of a superefficient, wonderfully comfortable world comes the terrible reality of the Bomb.

Material Nature is endlessly changing, and the patterns would seem to be quite without limit. Therefore the plans which are laid toward the control and utilization of Nature are generally defeated: There is always at least one factor that no one thought of, and this changes everything.

A nice example of this is the theory of evolution itself: It is at basis a try at clocking the changes of Nature in order to get one jump ahead, and in this way insure preservation of the species, if not of the individual. And yet, as this article is meant to prove, the theory itself has become a factor in the dissolution of modern civilization. This is that double bind again, which is inescapable so long as one’s footing remains firmly on the material platform. As soon as everything becomes automatic and predictable, life has lost its zest, and human nature will tend to blaze a new trail, even over the ruins of what went before, in its inexorable pursuit of the Absolute . This is why over-sophistication is generally the precursor of decline in any society. When people have fooled themselves into imagining that they know everything, they have lost their reason to live. Not because full knowledge is a bleak state, but because they don’t actually know, and the “everything” they foolishly accept, out of pride or by education, is utterly unfulfilling. In this sad situation, oblivion becomes a welcome prospect.

Unlike material pursuits, which must end in defeat, spiritual life is an eternal adventure. There is, in the awakening of full consciousness, a satisfaction unparalelled by any experience of the mundane world, as the words of all great saints and mystics attest. And, in the development of loving relationships with God, there is an eternal competition to give pleasure rather than to take—a competition between the devotee and Krishna, Who happily responds. And there is a security in the faith in eternal life which no concept of materialistic philosophy can establish.

Faith is, of course. the whipping boy of modern science. But no scientist has ever produced a theory or concept to remotely approach it in terms of human happiness. On the contrary, modern cynics are little more than dead stones compared to those who actually believe in God, in goodness, and in the immortality of the soul. The hopeless condition of modern mentality is a result of this loss of faith, and if this is progress, one must sincerely wonder where it’s pointing. Not that faith is ever absent. It has simply, now, been fixed in the material concept of life—in science, evolution, and so forth.

At this point, we can see that the goals of the materialist and of the spiritualist are, to a degree, the same: eternal life (for self or race, as you like), full knowledge, and bliss. And we can further see that the latter two, happiness and knowledge, are qualities of awareness, or consciousness . It takes no more than the proper adjustment in one’s consciousness to have happiness and knowledge—and eternal life too, though this will be less apparent. However, if one involves one’s consciousness simply in understanding the mechanics of the material universe, the driving of awareness away from self and into the complexities of an unpredictable machine can only result in ignorance and misery—and death, too, though this again will be less apparent.

Now, how to reach one’s goals, as mentioned before, is called morality. We should understand this point clearly: one doesn’t just behave. One acts toward some goal. He may desire to please parents, society, evolution, teachers, God, lust, etc. But, always, one’s conduct, at least in the human form of life, has direction. And this conduct and its direction are called morality.

Today, morality as we’ve known it has collapsed because the goals are anything but clear, and not really desirable. People, in being asked to “please evolution,” are asked to submit blindly to the good of the whole, according to the principles of an unsure theory. It is not the sort of request an intelligent person could comply with, and so our present youth, the first real target of full-scale evolutionism, has revolted, has lost hope, and is on the verge not only of smashing the old society, but of replacing it with a blind and vicious, utterly licentious anarchy.

No real morality can be built along materialistic lines. This is because in the end materialism offers nothing but death to its devotees. Educated away from God, facing the bleak prospect of sacrificing their lives to an uncaring force of Nature, it is little wonder that modern youth has rejected the old standards, and is hurling all its energies into grasping sense gratification to the fullest for what little time it may have. This is, after all, the intelligent thing to do under the circumstances.

Those who imagine themselves to be moral, but who have no understanding of the existence of God, are indeed more damned than those whose lives are devoted to unlimited sex and liquor. At least the sinful haven’t deceived themselves, and can therefore be saved by reasonable arguments. The self-righteous, convinced of their own perfection, are unapproachable by man or God. They are the truly evil in society, the worst of men, and it is of them that anarchy and all the other corruptions of society are spawned.

From such “moralists”—and it would seem that hardly any other kind exists today—revolt and ruin spring in full virulence, and not, please note, from the “wicked.” Not that the criminal elements of society are “good.” But they are, after all, at the mercy of the “good,” who have taught them the arbitrary rules of good and bad. Only when God sets the standard and that means God as He presents Himself in Scripture—can the real values of human life, of all life, be set.

This may seem Utopian, but please understand that it isn’t the faithful who are the ranting visionaries of today. The evolutionists and materialists in general are far more extravagant when it comes to building Utopias than any mystic out of Arabia. The only difficulty is that the materialistic Utopias have a way of failing to workout. Look, if you need an example, into any grade school textbook, and read about New York City. How wonderful it must be! So many giant buildings, so many bridges, so many trains, so many museums and monuments, so many people, millions of dollars, tons of food, dozens of restaurants, hundreds of theaters, scores of parks, zoos, gardens. The millennium. Then take a walk through the streets of New York City. Talk to the people. The balloon will break with stunning speed. As the saying goes, “I wouldn’t wanna live there.”

This is the frustrating nature of materialistic success. There is, in fact, no success without God. And, for one whose heart is set on God, there is no failure.

More than all else, the basic shortcoming in educating children to “please evolution” is that no scope is admitted for the individual’s hopes and desires. All must be sacrificed to the Whole, to the country or race or species or life force. Such a philosophy is far more grim than the grimmest Calvinism, far more hopeless and barbarian than the mythologies of the Norse.

The highly developed consciousness which is “natural” to human life is thus diverted, and like a sword turned back by an iron buckler, it may well cut the man who holds it. Prevented from pursuing his real direction, modern man—and more especially modern youth—is restless and empty, hopeless and angry, anxious and tragic and dangerous.

No philosophy, no morality, no system of thought or discipline has ever arisen which can, pragmatically, take the place of that real religion which is a vehicle for reaching God. In God consciousness the individual has his specific, eternal relationship with the Creator, Lover, Friend and Father of all. And acting as friend, child, lover and creature of God, the individual is able to benefit all who live, by offering to them the opportunity to advance out of the struggle for survival, and into the transcendental position of love of Godhead.

In this way. Krishna Consciousness fulfills the needs, completely and eternally, of the individual, the community—both human and universal—and of the Whole, which is the desire of the Supreme Godhead, Sri Krishna. This is not merely an alternative to chaos and anarchy. Such an alternative would necessarily be mundane. This is a final solution for the living being. It is the end of evolution.

For this issue we’ve chosen a few nice sweet preparations for you to enjoy.

(This name was given to this preparation by our Spiritual Master, who made this comment upon tasting these easy-to-make, quick-to-prepare sweets.)

1 cup sugar
½ cup butter
1 cup powdered milk (non-instant)
¼ cup water
½ vanilla bean

Chop up vanilla bean and heat in butter. Then add all ingredients and rub together. Work into small balls. Offer to Krishna and ENJOY!

1 cup farina
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1-½ cups water

Melt butter over low heat, add farina and stir constantly for 35 minutes. While you roast the farina, bring water and sugar to boiling point in a separate pot, and simmer. When the farina is thoroughly roasted (be careful not to burn) put into sugar water and stir until firm. Now your halavah is ready to offer and serve. It’s a delightful breakfast treat.

Puris are wonderful with rose petal jam. This recipe will make 10-12.

1 cup white flour
3 tablespoons melted butter (or ghee)

Sift white flour, add ghee and sift again so that butter is distributed evenly. Then add water and make a soft dough. Knead for 15 minutes. Roll into balls 1-½ inch diameter, then roll out each ball, using oil on your rolling pin and board. This will prevent sticking, and make for easier handling. Fry on high heat in ghee, once on each side. (Ghee is made by clarifying fresh sweet butter: Place a pound of butter in a small pot and let it stand on lowest heat for 8 hours. Then skim impurities off the top. The impurities can be used for frying vegetables.)

2-½ cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
½ cup molasses
½ cup water
½ cup raisins
1 teasp. grated orange or lemon peel
½ cup sugar
2-½ cups buttermilk
½ cup chopped walnuts
2-½ teasp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter pan and sprinkle flour. Combine all dry ingredients in bowl. Combine all wet ingredients in separate bowl. Then add wet to dry, stir quickly, pour into pan and bake for 15 minutes. Then turn heat to 325 degrees and bake 1 hour. This bread can be served with rose petal jam, butter, or cream cheese.

The world over, students, faculties and/or parents are in revolt, determined to alter their educational systems. Generally speaking, governments and school administrations are willing to make small changes, but not the sweeping ones which will satisfy the opposition. Students For A Democratic Society, for example, which spear-headed the Columbia revolt in New York last spring, has announced itself determined to bring down the existing university structure wholesale—but only in that it represents the entire American competitive-imperialist system. The SDS members have at least recognized the true dimensions of their struggle, although it seems naive of them to have assumed that the U.S. is THE enemy of human rights.

The truth is that each and every organization, regardless of its size or purpose or location, is ultimately brutal, exploitative and oppressive—including SDS itself—unless it can see beyond the limits of material life.

Materialism means not merely unbounded acquisitiveness. It means the acceptance of material Nature as supreme, and therefore assumes that man must work out his destiny within the bounds of Nature. But Nature, as Darwin pointed out, imposes an unpitying competition of her own upon all beings within her grasp. Therefore even the socialist, even the pacifist must kill to prolong his life, must inflict pain on someone or something (like cattle or chickens) to secure his own pleasure.

The dream of a society without competition, in which human beings can develop to their utmost potential, is natural. It is the gravitation of intelligent beings toward spiritual awareness—for spiritual awareness entails relationships of love and happiness, without hatred, envy or deprivation. But such a spiritual awareness cannot be had through submission to the brute force of material Nature. It is only possible—for both individuals and societies—through the understanding of the distinction between spirit and matter, and of the exalted position of the Supreme Spirit, Sri Krishna. This understanding is the fruit of Krishna conscious meditation upon the Holy Names of God: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

There is something stupendous, something real and gigantic and possibly wonderful waiting in the half-shadows of tomorrow’s dawn for mankind’s young generations. The question is whether the dawn will break in splendor or tragedy, whether the young will carry forward the blight of atheistic ignorance to its awful conclusion in a world of death, or whether they will turn instead to spiritual enlightenment, both glorifying the future and forgiving the past.

As far as their stated endeavors to build something finer and more sane go, we can only applaud and commiserate with SDS and the many similar student activist groups. But to accomplish the reality of a new and just society, we must urge with all sincerity that such revolutionaries add the practice of Krishna Consciousness to their lives and movements. The rejection not only of materialistic social systems, but of the entire scheme of material life, is the real revolution by which the world can hope to see a better day.