Mayapur: Kirtan Capital of the World: The Place of Compassion

Dear Friends,I'm sorry you haven't heard from me in such a long time. Lots of travel in many places. For two weeks in January, my son, Gaura Vani and I led a kirtan pilgrimage adventure with a group of twenty-four friendly and adventurous pilgrims around sacred and historic sites in Maharashtra, ending our time together with four days at the Govardhan Eco Village, and then culminating at the ecstatic Flower Festival at Radha Gopinath temple in Mumbai. Some of you on this email chain were there with us. It was a most magical time. Let me see if I can fill in some blanks for you now since I've been MIA.Since the beginning of February, I've been in Sridham Mayapur, the birthplace of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, on the banks of the Ganges River, about four hours north of Kolkata in West Bengal, on the other side of India from where we were before.I lived here from 1972-1974. Gaura Vani's father and I came here along with a group of other artists to learn the Bengali art of "putul", the making of clay dolls that are used in dioramas and religious festivals. Prabhupada's guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati had created enormous, what he called Theistic Exhibitions, using these dolls to illustrate  points of philosophy or lilas, pastimes of Krsna.At the time, these exhibitions were like a World's Fair, showcasing the latest advances in medicine, science, and education. At that time, in the 1930's, rigid caste brahmins objected to his innovative outreach. They said, " This is not Bhakti! This is against our traditions!" He replied in an extraordinary way. He said that the Ganges River changes her course over the centuries. If you are still taking your bath where the Ganges used to flow, what does that say about you? They were quiet after that.So our guru, Srila Prabhupada asked us to come here to Mayapur-- to do what? Gaura's father was a bit bewildered by the request. He's a brilliant painter and had illustrated many of Prabhupada's books from the beginning on their publication in 1969. Have you read The Krishna Book, with the introduction by George Harrison? Starting with that publication, his charming paintings were appearing in dozens of books. Now this accomplished painter was being asked to learn to make clay dolls. He was nonplussed, but the order of the guru is sacred. So off we went.He was a much better painter than I was. Once in Boston, Prabhupada had seen one of my paintings and then, one of his. Prabhupada honestly said,"The husband is better". After living in Mayapur and working on learning this putul art of doll making, Prabhupada was looking at what we'd learned. I had made one diorama of Radha Krsna, Gaura's Dad had made another one of Lord Caitanya. Somehow, the faces on mine were a bit better. Prabhupada looked and said, "The wife is better". It was quite funny at the time, since it had been over two years since he'd made the last comment about the husband being better. Prabhupada didn't miss a beat.[perfectpullquote align="left" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size="18"]When love is so freely given, the omnipotent Supreme Lord becomes so vulnerable, He becomes a prisoner in the heart of such rare devotees who love Him in that way.[/perfectpullquote]So this Sridham Mayapur is a very sacred place. Vrndavan is called Madhurya Dham: the place of Bhakti in the sweetness of conjugal love, or the love of Radha and Krsna. Mayapur is called Audharya Dham: the place of compassion, where that love is being freely given without discrimination to anyone and everyone by Sri Caitanya, as the form of Radha and Krsna combined.The wisdom books of Bhakti describe that God, or Krsna, owns and controls everything in existence except one thing: your love, my love, freely given. And He hankers after that. He is hungry for that. As an offering, He accepts only that. It's not the flower, or the fruit or the money. He only hankers for our love. And, of course, love must be freely given or it's not love, it's force. When love is so freely given, the omnipotent Supreme Lord becomes so vulnerable, He becomes a prisoner in the heart of such rare devotees who love Him in that way.When we first came here in 1972, it was all rice fields, as far as the eye could see, with a few temples commemorating Lord Caitanya's birthplace dotting the landscape here and there.When I arrived here this year at the end of January, it was all a bit overwhelming. I hadn't been here in fifteen years and it was all unrecognizable. The immense Temple of the Vedic Planetarium is under construction here, and there are residential and educational buildings everywhere. If you'd like, you can check it out at: sridhammayapur.org.I'm looking out the window of my room right now and the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Smt. Mamata Bannerjee has just arrived by helicopter. There are international flags surrounding the helicopter pad, showing the fulfillment of the prediction of Bhaktivinode Thakur ( the father of Prabhupada's guru, who had sent his books to Ralph Waldo Emerson and various universities in the West in 1896, the year of Prabhupada's birth). He had said that one day the people of the many countries of the world would join together with their Bengali brothers and sisters to chant the name of Sri Caitanya, "Jaya Sacinandana! Jaya Sacinandana!" All glories to the son of Saci, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu!"A few days ago, they hoisted the Sudarshan Chakras above the domes of the new temple construction. You can go online to view the ceremony. It was stunningly beautiful. Wikipedia defines Sudarshan Chakra as a spinning disk-like weapon for destroying negativity. It gives the vision of that which is auspicious. These disks were placed on the top of the domes in the ceremony the other day. They are up on top now, gleaming in the sunlight.The Mayapur International Kirtan festival begins here in a few days. The website says that this is the Kirtan Capital of the World. It's the place of origin of the kirtan, or sankirtan ( all joining together in kirtan) movement begun by Lord Caitanya.  

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I return to the US on February, 20th. My four-month sojourn in India this year has come to an end. These are poignant and nostalgic moments for me now. Perhaps we can plan another kirtan pilgrimage adventure for next year in the coming days and months.[table id=3 /]I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you soon at Bhakti Center in New York.All the best,Rukmini Walker

You see that you can't see

Last Monday morning at about 6 AM, my friend, Visakha and I set out from Mumbai to travel by car to the Govardhan Eco Village, about two hours outside of Mumbai. The usual deadlocked traffic is less at this time, so we drove through the early morning fog and smog with relative ease.

India is a land of extremes, as are places like New York. It's just more raw and in your face here. To me, India always seems to be in a perpetual state of construction and deconstruction. Driving across a bridge in the barely visible city, Visakha asked me if I knew the name of the river we were crossing. "There's a river here? You can see that you can't see it."

As we drove on, we passed billboards enticing the wealthy to luxury high-rises, Swiss watches, and diamond jewelry. Behind the billboards, we see the meant-to-be-unseen slums of Mumbai. Where thousands dwell in shantytowns of differing degrees of squalor. Some of them are farmers who've left their land in desperation due to failed harvests. Many of those farmers have committed suicide, having sacrificed their grandfathers' heirloom seeds to pressure from companies like Monsanto; many have come to cities like Mumbai to beg and somehow subsist.

We are traveling Govardhan Eco Village to attend a conference called Hinduism and Ecology that's being co-sponsored by Yale Divinity School. Environmental activists and scholars from the US, Europe and India are here giving papers, forging coalitions and offering hope for solutions to daunting environmental problems. GEV has been listed by UNESCO as a World Green Travel destination. You might have a look at their website (govardhanecovillage.org) to see the innovations they've come up with there to date.

Radhanath Swami opened the conference quoting Bhagavad Gita's many verses about seeing God in nature: Bhagavan Sri Krsna says, "I am the taste of water; the light of the sun and the moon; the ability in all people..." He spoke of how environmental contamination begins with contamination of the heart: when our hearts become polluted with greed to acquire more than we need, the external result is that the rivers, the mountains, and the air become polluted as well. Isopanishad advises us to accept only what we need, knowing well to Whom all things actually belong.

A Bengali Vaisnava scholar named Abhisek Bose quoted the third Siksastakam prayer of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu:

"One should be more humble than a blade of grass; more tolerant than a tree; one should be ready to offer all respects to others and not expect honor for oneself."

He said that in this way Caitanya has inverted the anthropocentric pyramid to place grass and trees at the top and human beings at the very bottom.

Srivatsava Goswami was the keynote speaker. He spoke powerfully of Krsna's love for the holy land of Vrndavan; and about the selflessness of the earth as the ever-giving sacred feminine goddess.

After dark each night at GEV, there is an aarti ceremony (a ceremony offering prayers with kirtan, lights, and incense) offered to the River Yamuna, the river goddess who has been recreated there, although she is disappearing from her own native Vrndavan landscape.

Bridget Cappo was there visiting from Supersoul Farm in Chatham, New York. During the beautiful Yamuna aarti Brij felt so conflicted feeling the pain of the original Yamuna River goddess who is being so exploited by corporate interests. The sacred river is being dammed up at Haryana to grow rice for export, leaving Delhi and further on Vrndavan only a trickle of polluted runoff water. (Please go to YouTube to watch the trailer: Rescuing the Stolen River)

We left in moods of introspection:

Let me see what I can do to see more clearly: what can I do to live more simply, to reduce the unseen greed in my heart to acquire more than what I need? Until we can open our hearts to love, we see but we don't really see.

Disappearing

I'm in Mumbai now, in the state of Maharashtra; at the other end of the spectrum from Govardhan, in Vrndavan, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Environmentally, socially, technologically, and in some ways, spiritually also. Although in India, glimpses of spirit are more thinly veiled than they seem in the West, even in modern cities like Mumbai.Vrndavan appears to be a rather backward, dusty village in Uttar Pradesh, yet there is the prakata: the visible, the apparent, the manifest, and there is the aprakata: the unseen, the unmanifest, what lies beneath the surface-- in both the places and the people here.There are jewels of consciousness (touchstones) to be uncovered in the holy places of Vrndavan, and there are jewels in the hearts of the people, even in modern cities like Mumbai. Mumbai is lush with palm trees, banyans, mangoes, champak, and flowering trees of every variety; with cutting-edge architecture in areas where you'd blink and think you're in New York City.In Vrndavan, the trees are more sparse, many looking gnarled and ancient. They are called desire trees, or kalpa vriksa: trees that can fulfill one's desires when we pray to them. Some are said to be perfected beings living there in moods of worship. Some are mentioned in scripture: the golden Kadamba is compared to Sri Radha; the blackish Tamal to Sri Krsna. The Goswamis were sent to Vrndavan by Sri Caitanya to rediscover the lost places of Krsna's pastimes. They were said to sleep under a different tree each night. And the trees would reveal to them the pastime that had taken place underneath each one. One Braj poet said that Krsna is blueish and Radha is golden. When the two meet, their color becomes green, and the trees of Vrndavan represent the union of Radha and Krsna.But in Vrndavan, many sacred trees that have been worshiped for centuries are disappearing. The holy Yamuna River that flows from her source in the Himalayas has been dammed at Haryana until hardly a trickle of her water reaches holy Vrndavan. The Yamuna is disappearing. The sacred Govardhan Hill is said to be shrinking, disappearing each day by the size of a mustard seed.Black carbon particles from coal plants are also settling on the once white snow-capped Himalayas. This causes the snow to melt and they say that in coming years the holy Ganges will also disappear.And in this Age of Kali Yuga, the age of quarrel and dissension, people's good qualities are said to be diminishing or disappearing.Today in Mumbai we celebrated the Disappearance Day of my guru, Prabhupada's guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, who left this world in 1937. For a saint, we don't say that they die, but rather, they disappear from our vision and enter their eternal lila (pastimes) in the spiritual world with Krsna. Celebrate in the sense that such a passing from this world is glorious.Prabhupada said once, about his guru, in the dedication to one of his books:"He lives forever by his divine instructions, and the follower lives with him".It's said that there's no greater suffering than the feeling of separation from such a great soul. Yet the connection through hearing and receiving divine instruction is palpable and eternal. Inconceivable in a sense, but we can also perceive how longing for something precious or sublime pulls us closer."Longing, felt fully, carries us to belonging."--Tara BrachAs jiva soul, I am also eternal, yet temporary in my present body. What will disappear, and what will remain? My soul will travel, as I desire. But if I desire to know, to love, to go deeper into who I am in truth, then that longing will carry me to belonging, to relationship, to the celebration of the appearance of Krsna within my heart.

Pondering the Path from Mindfulness to Heartfullness

Have you ever been sitting in a kirtan* when the kirtan leader says, "Now, from the heart!"? And you wonder, "how do I find the place of my heart?"Of course, there's the physical heart, with its ventricles and atria and valves and all. And research does show that even the physical actions of the heart are affected by grief, joy, "heartbreak" etc.And then there's the emotional heart, when we fall in love, or out of love... Thinking, feeling and willing are the actions of the emotional heart/mind, each one engaging us more powerfully than the previous one.But what about the heart of my heart? The deepest place inside of me where I, the soul, the jivatma reside. The seat of my deepest love and aspirations. And where the Soul of my soul, the Supersoul, also resides, guiding me over innumerable lifetimes... if I will only hear.I heard a story from a friend, a Buddhist teacher, about one of her colleagues. He, also a Buddhist teacher, was assisting one of his students who was dying of a very painful stomach cancer. The teacher was coaching his dying student to go to the place of mindfulness. After some time, the student told his teacher that the mindfulness wasn't working. His teacher replied, "Then you must go to the place of the heart, you must go to the place of heartfulness."We hear so much about mindfulness, and most of us have benefited from it's gifts. But the interior journey has many layers. In the external world, so many extreme terrains have been trekked and explored; the highest mountains have been climbed; the mysteries of deep seas have been uncovered. But that place of the heart of our hearts remains the deepest unknown place of mystery and unexplored treasures.How can I pursue this inward bound journey? By the sincere cry of my heart, and by begging for grace from beyond my own strength to uncover these deep secrets that are within me.*Kirtan: the call and response singing of sacred names of the divine. Meant to uncover our eternal forgotten connection to our Source, the Supreme Beloved Person, known by many names, such as Krishna, Govinda, Ram, in the Bhakti tradition, or Allah, Jehovah, and others around the world.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

On the roof of Bal Krsna Bhavan

This morning I collected super fragrant parijata flowers to offer to the Lord. Delicate white flowers with a bright orange center that fall to the ground each morning at dawn. They are said to come from a tree brought from the heavenly planet as a gift from Lord Krsna to His wife, Rukmini (my namesake). Here in India, the spiritual realm is so intertwined with what's right before our eyes.Chanting on the roof of the Bal Krsna Bhavan for at least two hours, two nilagai reclined on the ridge of Govardhan, in profile, as still as Sphinxes, other than an occasional turn of the head or wiggling of the ears. How still and quiet to my murmur of the Holy Names-- calling out for acceptance into this holy realm.At one point, near them, upon the ridge, a large monkey jumped onto an aged tree and began to violently shake it back and forth. Have I seen this once in a Tarzan movie?Which consciousness do I want? The quiet murmur, calling for grace, calling to be ardent in patience-- or the violent, possessed urgency of passionate desire? Krsna, please come! I exist in a foreign atmosphere and I long to be accepted by You, in Your realm of selfless reciprocal love.

Praying for Moments of Change

I am praying for moments of profound change. Praying for one drop of taste for the Holy Name. Praying to be awakened to the reality of the pure Holy Name and the reality of this holy place. Sacinandana Swami said that we need to let the Holy Name go beyond the shore and open the gates of the heart and enter deep inside. He said that affection, chanting in relationship, is the key to accepting our helplessness in front of the ferocious uncontrolled mind. We have tried so hard to build a road to come to the Lord. But have we built the road for Krishna to come to us? How many tears, an ocean of tears are needed to call Him to us. I cry for so many other things instead. He said that we are all pilgrims and we only have the compass of the soul to show the way. We need to open the eyes of our conscious yearning of the soul. He said that these holy places fulfill that yearning of the soul. May each of us find what we are looking for! May you all be blessed! Giriraj Maharaj Kijay!

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

Krishna's Cows

Krishna has a string of 108 jewels that He uses to count his 108 groups of cows. He knows every cow by name, and the cows like to wander away so they can hear Him call their names. If you ever feel sad or depressed you can just call out the names of Krsna’s cows and you will feel so happy! Oh, Hamsi! Oh, Pasungi! Oh, Vamsi! Oh, Priya! Oh, Mrdanga Mukhi (That name is funny… It’s a cow who has a face shaped like a mrdanga drum!) Oh, Manikasthini! Krishna takes care of the baby calves and he likes to put his forehead right on the calf’s forehead and then he looks the calf right in the eyes and says, “Do you miss your mother? We’ll take you back to her soon”. Vrindavan is all about relationships. Loving, kind, considerate relationships. Topics about Krishna are the medicine for the heart for this age. To help a human being think of others before oneself. In this age of Kali Yuga, people have lost their finer sentiments to think in these kinds of ways.

Greetings from Govardhan Hill

This month, in November, I’m attending two retreats right at the foot of the sacred Govardhan Hill in Sri Vrindavan Dham. There is a very rare and elusive animal that lives only in this area called a nilgai, or a blue cow. It has the legs of a deer and the body of a cow. It’s kind of blueish gray colored. Kind of an Indian version of a unicorn. It’s considered a great fortune to see one. Once many years ago before Vrindavan was so built up I saw one running across the road. We were watching a whole herd of them walking on top of the Govardhan Hill while we were having our sanga. So rare and beautiful!Once Radha asked Krsna to create a place for their personal pastimes. With a love-laden glance from Krsna’s heart, He created a seed that manifested His love and created the Govardhan Hill where there are many caves that are like palaces inside where Radha and Krishna have their own private pastimes. For people in the Bhakti tradition, it’s considered to be the most sacred place in the universe. Coming here is like an investment in eternity. Coming to such a holy place brings one's past belief or knowledge to a place of experience that empowers us and sustains us in times of difficulty. My intention has been to try to awaken to the reality of the pure Holy Name and Holy Dham. The material mind is a gift of the material energy to make me think that I am the center of existence. If I can hear one Hare Krishna mantra beginning with the word Hare, I am so fortunate. Be determined to confront the mind, this is the easiest way to learn humility: I need help! Humility means taking shelter of Krishna. Krishna is there when we are in that mood. Let every distraction in chanting help us to beg for help! Krishna is not different from his name, but His name is more merciful than Krishna Himself.--RukminiRadha and Krishna on Govardhan Hill painting by Vrindavan Das