Radhika, Ton Nom

Chere Radhika,

Salut.

Bonne jour ma fille philosophique. Il y a une historie interessante autour comment tu as

Radhika*

recu votre nom. Je crois que tu voudrais en savoir. Quand j’ etais un jeune homme j’ avais beaucoup peur concernant le nombre d’ efants que jevoulais avoir. Je me suis inquiete de l’argent! Puis, un jour une voix vint dans ma tete et elle dit, “N’ayez pas peur, cette fille vous amenera de l’argent. Appelez cette fille cadette “Radhika.” Elle est speciale. Elle est un don des dieux a vous, a cause de tout les autres.

Je t’embrasse affectueusement

Pita

 

 

*Photograph by Malati Marvin

First Private Space Flight

I remember how Bhaktivinoda described the first installation of gas street lighting and the introduction of the telegraph in Calcutta. To read about these historic events in the pages of his autobiography (Svalikhita Jivani) was fascinating for me. Today I witnessed my own piece of history, the successful flight of SpaceShip One. This was the first privately funded flight into space. Spaceship One taxied down a runway in the Mohave desert at 7 AM near where I live and traveled 65 miles into the heavens to just touch the limits of space and then returned successfully back to earth.

For this feat the project members won a ten million dollar prize awarded by one of the founders of Microsoft. As much as this first space flight was significant, it was no less significant that I watched this flight in streaming video on my computer over the internet through a wireless satellite connection. I am sure that history will look back and judge this space flight, and even more so, the rise of the internet as two most important developments in human history. The creation of the internet may be liken the invention of the printing press. As each day passes the internet becomes increasingly potent and indispensable. In my life I have witnessed the early space programs by Russia and America as well as the first moon landing. And now I have seen the beginnings of commercial space flight. These are great moments in history.

Image taken from: http://science.howstuffworks.com/spaceshipone.htm

Life in a Box

If you are a faithful member of a religious organization, you live in a box. If you are a serving member of the military, you live in a box. If you are an active member of a political party, you live in a box. Life is full of boxes. Boxes are necessary. Boxes help us organize our lives. We put things into boxes. We put our mind into boxes.

As a youth growing up in Toronto I became involved with the Hare Krishna movement and in so doing I unwittingly put my mind into a box, the box of medieval Vaishnavism. You can debate whether my involvement in Krishna Consciousness was a good thing or not, but in either case it turned out to be much more than I could have foreseen and there came a time when it was necessary to free myself from this box. The rationale for my decision to leave the box will become apparent as this writing proceeds. For now, however, I will begin to discuss life within the box called Krishna Consciousness.

I have described Krishna Consciousness as “old time religion.” This, of course, is the framing of a Hindu religious tradition in Christian terms, but I think the characterization fits. More precisely Krishna Consciousness is religious fundamentalism, which is the interpretation of religious scripture in literal terms. It is also religious evangelicalism–spread the word and save the world. Chanting in the streets of Toronto, the devotees were taking the direct word of God to the “fallen souls” of Toronto in an attempt to save them. This is precisely the same thing that evangelical Christians do and what was been done by missionaries the world over throughout history. The Hare Krishna movement is nothing less than a Hindu missionary organization. We often hear about “born again” Christianity. In this country a large segment of Christians profess this form of Christianity including the current president of the United States, George W. Bush, and many of his predecessors including Presidents Charter and Reagan. Krishna Consciousness is nothing less than “born again” Hinduism. All you need do is change the name of Jesus to Krishna and change the stories from Biblical stories to Puranic Hindu stories and you have “born again Hinduism.” The mental attitude is identical.

So what is it about Krishna consciousness that brings it so close to born again Christianity and other forms of religious fundamentalism? It is the doctrine that sacred scripture must be interpreted literally and that scripture constitutes the most comprehensive means of knowing, above even perception and reason. It is this single tenet that clearly defines Krishna Consciousness as a form of religious fundamentalism similar to born again Christianity, Islamic or Jewish fundamentalism and other forms of religious literalism. They demand that you surrender your mind and emotions to an external ideal or power. In effect you temporarily shut down your mind and suppress your personality. In exchange you receive a discipline, a world view, and a way of life. You live in a clearly defined world and therefore you know precisely how to think and act. This is also the case when you surrender to a political ideal such as marxism, or join a military organization such as the United States Armed Forces.

I consider my time spent in the Hare Krishna movement to be extremely valuable and yet extremely difficult. My years spent in this fundamentalist’s state of mind allowed me to touch some incredibly basic aspects of human nature and to come into contact with my own psychology and my own essence. In joining Krishna Consciousness, I received a discipline and distinct purpose in life. But I also entered my own heart of darkness and touched my passion. As arrogant as this may seem, I now have a better idea of my potential.

There is well known writer, Joseph Conrad, who wrote a novel entitled, Heart of Darkness, in which a European explorer, possessing a moral character and with the best of intentions, enters the darkness of the African jungle. Once inside the womb of the African wilderness he finds himself stripped of European culture and utterly alone with himself. He soon finds himself doing things he never could have dreamed of. In a similar way, my venture into Krishna Consciousness was my own journey into the African wilderness, into my own heart of darkness. I learned what tremendous evil, as well as what tremendous good, lies within the human soul.

Anna, do you know what ghee is? In English it is called clarified butter. Put a pound of butter into a cooking pot. Turn up the heat ever so gently. Watch what happens. First, the butter melts and later it begins to pop and sputter, all kinds of impurities begin to rise to the top. Skim these impurities away and eventually you will be left with a pure and golden oil that we call ghee. This is clarified butter. The human soul is like butter. Turn the heat up by depriving a person of adequate sleep, food and sex. Isolate the person from his indigenous culture, remove all social barriers, minimize common moral values and watch what happens. You will be shocked to see what kinds of impurities exist within the human soul, within your soul. Now take that person, unlock their passion and focus it on a lofty goal. Watch the creative juices flow. This was Krishna Consciousness in the 1970s. Tremendous acts of creativity took place, as well as great acts of misplaced spirituality.

Comments:

Shesha Marvin: I really enjoyed this article and I want to read more. I think it’s interesting that this it the most I’ve really of your writing. This post clarifies so much of the crap stuffed into my head as a kid. I’ve dated a lot of Christians and seem to attract them to my swing dances and lessons. In this association I’ve learned enough to really see how Christianity has imbedded itself into western Hinduism. Such ideas include the need to worship 1 all powerful god or the need to save souls via crusades and preaching tours. One of the happiest days of my life was the day I left New Vrindavana, the Hare Krishna farm community where I was raised. I prefer my freedom from the Box. I found NO value in having my answers to life’s questions given to me in a boxed set. (10/1/04, 8:45 PM)

Karnamrita Harbert: I only have one memorie from New Vrindavan, Cold marble flooring, and one hard bunk bed. I remember wetting the bed, waking up and feeling alone. I don’t think I was there long. Recently though I did take a trip to New Vrindavan hoping to gather some information about my past. People there remember Pita, and where curious to know what he was doing. I was not comfortable there at all, people there had a film of black to them, a greasy sort of feeling. Their eyes, lifeless. My heart pourd out to them and I wanted to save them from the madness. They were all cows following some unnamed master. I am glad I was not involed in that box for too long. (10/2/04, 10:20 AM)

*Illustration by Lalita © 2005

Image Source: http://coverlaydown.com/2010/10/darkness-darkness-coverfolk-for-our-shorter-days/

My Father

I now step backwards in time to fill in some of the gaps of my story by talking about my early life with my parents and grandparents.

My father was born in 1924 in Toronto, Canada. He rarely speaks of his past, so I know little of his early life. I do know, however, that his mother, Mary, died when she was in her thirties. She left three young children: two sons and a daughter. My father was the middle child. Both the older brother and younger sister are now dead. My paternal grandfather was named Francis. After the passing of his first wife, Mary, he married a lady named Able. I have no memory of Able, but I do have a photo of Francis and Able together. The only memory I have of Grandfather Francis is riding with him on a bus in Toronto. Other than he produced my father, grandfather Francis had no direct influence on my life.

My father was a passionate outdoors man, which is where I get my love for the wilderness. He would take the family camping every summer, way up in Northern Ontario. It was never good enough to go to the regular camping areas. Oh no, we had to go to wilderness camp sites, old mining, logging and hunting camps. We even carried heavy planks in our trailer just in case we had to them lay down over the road to pass. I can remember my mother’s voice, “Oh! Oh! Oh”! as we attempted to cross some impassible piece of road to reach some God forsaken destination! I have photos of those wilderness camps. My mother is smiling, but you should have seen her face as we struggled to reach these places!

My father quit high school prematurely in order to join World War II. Consequently, he never completed his education in his youth. He spent three years in England during the war working as an aircraft mechanic and bomb loader. One day I discovered a German Luger, a kind of pistol, and a German belt buckle hidden away in the attic of our house. I was fascinated to read the inscription on the buckle: Gott mit uns, God with us. As a boy I thought it was strange that both armies called upon God to bless their effort. I guess these two remnants of the war were my father’s mementos.

To my father’s credit I remember him sitting at the dinning room table every night struggling to finish his high school diploma. Twice a week for years he attended night school. In this way he gradually completed both grade twelve and thirteen. Calculus was his most difficult subject and I remember that he failed twice before he finally passed. He just would not give up until he accomplished his goal. In the end he successfully completed his high school diploma. Today this is the equivalent of high school plus one year of university. It was a big achievement for my father and I am sure that I learned determination and tenacity as a result of watching his struggle. There was no practical reason for him to take the time to finish his education, but he valued learning above all things. I remember him insisting that I complete my education to the fullest. He did not care what I studied so long as I studied. Most fathers would not have tolerated their sons spending the most important years of their life studying a subject as obscure as Sanskrit. But from my father’s perspective, so long as I was in college and studying something that I enjoyed and doing it well, he was satisfied. I remember him saying that even if I wanted to be a bank robber I would be a better one if I had a college education. So he insisted on a college education for me, but what I studied was my business. My father allowed me to follow my passion. He never interfered and always supported me to the fullest. I love him for this single aspect alone.

After the war my father took a job with the local telephone utility. The year was 1946. He stayed with this company until he retired in 1997. That is over 50 years with the same company! Similarly, he lived in the same house at that he purchased along with my mother after they married. We never moved. My parents still own and live in that house today. They paid $11,000 in 1951 and today it is worth a small forture. My parents acquired wealth, not because they were aggressive business people or shrewd stock investors, but because they saved and saved and saved. From the day my father started work and received his first paycheck he bought stock every month without fail. My parents never bought new cars and always lived a frugle lifestyle. They are both the product of the great depression and what they have accomplished in life is the result of steady work.

The most important influence my father had on my life was his personal example of stability and hard work, his passion for the rural life, and above all, his love of learning. Thank you, dad!

 

The Desert Night

No words can describe the beauty of an evening in the California desert. The days are hot, and hot here means interminable heat. The sun is relentless. Everything is drenched in unending sunlight. Ah, but the nights. They are nectar! The heat evaporates the moment the sun says goodbye and a refreshing cool blanket of air descends. In a couple of minutes the moon will rise and bring some refreshing light. But for now it is dark like you can not imagine.

There is an unwritten law amongst the residents of the desert not to have outside lighting. So except for a few dim window lights of my neighbors it is dark. I can see the milky way. In Hinduism the milky way is called Divya Ganga, the heavenly Ganges. This river in the sky crosses the universe and falls to earth as the river Ganges. It is said that if you bath in this river, all your sins are washed away. I have bathed in that Ganga and now I see that same Divya Ganga flowing overhead. Hail to that Ganga whom I worship for her beauty!

I now see a tiny glimpse of a golden moon peaking at me over the horizon. A few coyotes sing a welcome. The night hunt begins.

 

My Passion

I ask the question: What decisions did I take as a youth that have most radically directed the course of my life? My decision to study Sanskrit, my decision to become involved in Hindu spirituality, and my decision to move to the United States are certainly ones that have powerfully impacted my life. But these decisions, although important, are not primary. They flow from something much deeper. The decision that I took as a youth, without consciously realizing it, was to have the courage, or perhaps the obstinacy of character, to listen to my inner voice of passion and to act upon that passion in spite of social convention, practicality and comfort.

Social convention told me that I should study something useful–medicine, law, engineering, but my heart said Sanskrit, theology and philosophy. Practical wisdom told me not to be spiritual at so young an age, but my heart said, “Search now for meaning.” Comfort told me to stay in the motherland, but my yearning for adventure pulled me south to the American giant.

Has listening to my inner voice made my life easier? No. Should my path be the path of others? No. Do I advise others to listen to and to follow their own inner voice? My answer is decidedly yes.

Muslims have a word that has become notorious in recent years, jihad, holy war. But I take the meaning as personal struggle. When you reach deep into your soul and hear that inner voice, which may at first be weak and muffled, when you tap into your soul’s passion and allow it to burst forth into your life, you undertake a great struggle, the struggle between mediocrity and fulfillment. Most certainly the world will try to silence that voice and extinguish your passion, but having once tasted this way of life you will find it impossible to give in to mediocrity. You will lose battles, you will have fallen times, perhaps for months or years at a stretch, but as long as a single ember of your soul’s inner fire remains alive, you will extricably be drawn back into the struggle. Listening to that inner voice and feeling that passion, generates your life’s goals and directs your decisions.

I am told that if I fly from New York to London, I will be off course much of the time! But I arrive just the same because I constantly make corrections along the way. Life’s path is the same. Once you have heard that inner voice and set your goals you must be prepared to make adjustments along the way. And driven by your passion you will likely achieve your goals. But there is a deeper virtue to this endeavor. The attainment of your goals is not the purpose, it is the struggle to achieve the goal; it is the growth and the deepening of your character that takes place as a result of your struggle, that is more important. Even if you fail to achieve your goals you will have at least deepened your being. Life takes place within the journey, and the more focused that journey, the better.

*Image taken from: http://vluhd.deviantart.com/art/Burning-Inside-75058018?q=gallery%3Avluhd%2F11908493&qo=22

Turning On

Wednesday, August 25, 2004 10:09:25 PM

I was planning to go back to the city this afternoon, but as it turned out I just felt like laying around and sleeping for the day. So I am still in the desert. Sometimes, after a long work stretch all I can do is sleep for a couple of days in order to recover. It is a strange thing, the more I sleep the worse I feel. It is like I have to go through “layers” of recovery in order to get out of the fog. I am actually a very quiet and introverted personality, but when I get into a crowd I “turn on” and become another person.

This “turning on” process involves adrenaline and so the turning off process involves the burning off of this adrenaline. This is why I call Monday, hangover day. I am literally hung over from the weekend hormone (adrenaline). I understand why entertainers and people who deal with intense public situations resort to drugs. They use them to switch on or switch off. My desert solitude is my coping means.

Desert Heat

Joshua Tree, CA

The weather has been extraordinarily hot here in California. Driving on the freeway my car thermometer read 46 degrees Celsius at one point. Even tonight as I write the temperature is still around 40. My AC is running full blast. Usually it cools down in California. The nights are wonderful, but not tonight. We are in the depths of summer and in this heat the mind ceases to function properly. This reminds me of the cold winters in Canada. There was a time in the winter when the thermometer would drop below -40 degrees for weeks on end and the brain would cease to function. That is what it is like here in the depths of the California summer. Anna, once you have lived for just one winter in a warm climate that never gets frost or snow you are spoiled for life. When I was 24 I spent my first winter in Los Angeles. The next winter I was back in Canada. It was February 1st and the temperature was 40 degrees below zero and I remember asking myself what in God’s name I was doing in such a hellish place? I moved back to the southern United States as soon as I could.

The Hare Krishna Movement

Last night I sent you another installment and in this piece I referred to the Hare Krishna Movement. You may not know much about this group other than they dance on the streets and chant. So that you may better understand what I am going to write in future installments, I want to provide you with some background information about this group.

The Hare Krishna Movement is a Hindu devotional sect that has its roots in Bengal, a state on the eastern side of India, (Calcutta is the capital). The origins of this organization go back about 550 years to a founder named Chaitanya (1496-1533), who preached a form of devotional Hinduism called bhakti-yoga. I have previously explained yoga as the union of the soul with God. Bhakti means devotion, so bhakti-yoga is the path of love and devotion for God. The principle form of God who is worshipped in this sect is Krishna. Sometimes the Hare Krishna movement is called Krishna Consciousness. The legal name of this organization is ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

In 1966 a guru (religious teacher) named Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad came to America (New York) and began preaching this form of devotional Hinduism. Many American youth were attracted to Prabhupada and his teachings

Hare Krishna temple in Ontario, Canada

and so the Hare Krishna movement gradually grew. Between 1967 and 1980 the movement became very large and popular in the West. Temples were established throughout America, Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world including India. The group first came to Toronto in 1968.In later years the movement has been embroiled in legal cases involving money and even child abuse.

I became involved, as you will soon learn, from 1969, but gradually fell away in the late 1980s due do certain philosophical issues that you will also hear about in due course. In America the movement gained a reputation for being a dangerous cult. A cult perhaps, but dangerous no. I will have a lot of say about this later. In this country the media will do anything to create sensationalism in order to make a good story, and a good story means money!

Top Image Source: http://www.mothshutup.wordpress.com

*Source: http://www.thefullwiki.org

Sultan: A Message From Krishna

I remember lying in bed late one evening listening to FM radio. I was 16. In those days FM radio was new and many stations were experimenting with different formats. I was listening to an “underground” FM rock station. This was considered avante guard. A lady was being interviewed who was talking about Bhagavad Gita. I was immediately captivated. “My book, she was talking about my book”! This girl was a member of the Hare Krishna movement. The Krishna devotees had just come to Toronto and they were chanting and dancing in the streets. Little did I know that my life was about to change dramatically.

Anna, I have absolutely no India or Hinduism in my family upbringing. I had no friends who knew anything about India or even yoga. Now here, for the first time, someone was talking about Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita! I had to meet these people, but as fate would have it, I was scheduled to leave for the Northern Ontario bush for a summer of work with the Canadian government. My summer job was with the department of Lands and Forest. My meeting with Krishna had to wait.

My father was a great lover of the outdoors. He had arranged for me to spend the summer working in the “great” Canadian wilderness, so I was being shipped off for a summer of government service developing portage trails and cleaning latrines for the park’s department. I was to be paid $5 dollars a day plus food and board in a government labor camp. The place was called Sultan. I have no idea where that name came from, but it was so far out in the Canadian wilderness that there were no roads to reach it, ice remained in the ground all year (permafrost) and the mosquitos where as big as sparrows. And for added measure, there was the curse of the black fly! Black-flies are horrid creatures that make life intolerable in the Canadian north country.

To reach Sultan I had to take a train 1000 kms north from Toronto. This was my first trip away from home. I was a shy and quiet boy and I remember boarding a train at Union Station in downtown Toronto and then being dropped off at the rail station in Sultan at about 4 AM some 36 hours later. I was alone and afraid. I waited alone by the tracks in the fading night darkness and waited.

In a few hours I was picked up and shuttled off to the camp in the back of a garbage truck. I found myself living with a hundred other 16 year old city boys. The camp was an old lumber camp. We lived in barracks that each housed about 35 beds and as you can imagine there was a lot of youthful testosterone flowing through this camp.

Our days consisted of rising at 6 AM followed by 7 AM breakfast. We were on the trails working by 8:00 AM. Lunch was at 12 noon sharp after-which we were back at work by 1:30 PM. We finished by 4:30 PM and then allowed to swim or relax in some other way. The final meal of the day was served at 6:30 PM. Stationed squarely at the front of the dinning hall was a sign that read, “Talking during meals prohibited”! This was a standard rule followed throughout the Canadian north to discourage loggers and miners from getting into fights during meal time.

We were constructing a national park so our work largely consisted of cutting trails, developing beachs, digging toilets and swatting flies. Those damn black flies. They would crawl into your socks, up your sleeves, in your ears, down your neck and gnaw away at your skin until they reached your blood. They would feast on you. And you ended up with bleeding infected soars. Horrible. At night the mosquitoes took over where the black flies left off. To this day I am traumatized by the sound of the female mosquito hunting for my blood in the dark. In order to survive we slept under mosquito nets. During the day we worked with head nets. The screen of my head net blurred my vision and I developed a tremendous headache that seemed to last all summer. I went through a daily spray of DDT, a powerful insecticide that is now banned. It was a matter of survival from these torturous insects.

This is one of the reasons that I love the Southern California desert. There are no black-flies or mosquitos! But I do miss the color green. Anna, here everything is dull brown except for a few weeks in the year when the mountains and deserts burst into a dazzling display of glorious green. The colour green is intoxicating. And then even more beautiful the desert explodes into bloom. Nothing can compare to the desert in bloom. But it only happens every few years, not every year. If there is a lot of rain in the summer and fall, the desert dresses itself up in flowers. It is a glorious sight!

I remember I kept one shirt and one pair of pants just for working. I wore this shirt and pants for the whole summer without washing them even once. These clothes soaked up all the insecticide along with my sweat and became permanently insect repellant. When I returned to Toronto after 10 weeks I remember putting them through the wash. When I went to retrieve them no shirt and no pants could be found. They had totally dissolved in the wash!

Another feature of this summer in the northern bush was the Friday night drunk. Each Friday for the 10 weeks, the camp commander drove whoever wanted to go, which was mostly everyone, into Sultan for a night on the town. This included a rendezvous with a dozen cases of Canadian beer (24 bottles to the case). This cache had been strategically deposited in a field just outside of town. You can imagine this motley crew of boys descending on this brew. This ritual would begin about 6 PM and last until midnight at which time we would be promptly rounded up and herded back into our garbage trucks for the 40 km drive back to camp.

Out of the ten possible treks into town I went on one. Mostly I liked to stay back for peace and quiet. I needed time alone, I did not fit into this group, so the Friday night drunk was a welcome opportunity for some private time. But on the one occasion that I did go on the town-run, I became drunk and made a complete fool of myself. I remember singing loudly while I urinated in the middle of Sultan. This was my first experience with alcohol so it took only 3 beers to cause my undoing. I had a good time.

One of the great things about life in the logging camp was the Playboy magazine. I distinctly remember an interview with George Harrison, one of the Beetles. He was describing Hindu spirituality. If you know the history of the Beetles, you will know that they went through a period in India with a guru. I particularly remember George Harrison reciting the Hindu prayer:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

At the time I knew nothing of this prayer. I had never heard it before, nor did I know its meaning. But somehow I inscribed it onto a piece of birch-bark and carried it in my glass case for the rest of the summer. Though I could not go to Krishna back in Toronto, Krishna had come for me in Sultan through the pages of a Playboy magazine.