In the early summer of 1966, Srila Prabhupada was sharing a Bowery loft with a young American friend. But when the boy went crazy on drugs and drove him out, suddenly Prabhupada found himself in the street, homeless and alone.
Thousands of young people were walking the streets, not simply intoxicated or crazy (though they often were), but searching for life’s ultimate answers.
Once we become spiritually fulfilled, we’ll be finished with sexual problems. In the latter part of our lives, if not much earlier, we’ll abstain to concentrate on self-realization and the unlimited pleasure within. Yet during married life, sex for producing children is also chaste.
So the first thing is that one should be searching after a spiritual master, just as when you search after some school, you must have at least some preliminary knowledge of what a school is.
Sudama Brahmana is gloriously received by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, and His eternal consort Srimati Rukmini.
When we go chanting Hare Krishna outdoors, under the blue sky, with drums and cymbals through the streets, who can measure the essence of that?
When we were chanting Hare Krishna My pleasure was so great I was afraid lest I be swept to heaven and given a chariot ride down the length of the rainbow.
At Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue the chariots are waiting. Forty feet high with spires atop. I bow to the statue of Srila Prabhupada which sits on an elegant throne in the second chariot.
The dingy loft, its rafters unpainted, was more like an old warehouse than a temple. The members of his audience, most of them musicians, had come to meditate on the mystical sounds of the Swami’s kirtana, his chanting.
Seeing Krishna in the coils of the serpent Kaliya, Krishna’s friends the cowherd boys and the other residents of Vrndavana were stunned with fear. When they saw Him overpowered by the coils of the serpent Kaliya, they fell to the ground.
Most people think they have no need for a spiritual master. In a sense, they are right. People interested only in an animal-like existence do not need a spiritual master. A spiritual master is required for a person who is inquisitive about transcendental knowledge.
“His American church”—yes, Srila Prabhupada had hope and determination. There was life in his lectures and kirtanas (chantings), his morning and evening gatherings in the loft. At least he was acquiring a small, regular following. But from India there was no hope.
Krishna urged His father to concentrate on the activities of Vrndavana. Indra, He said, was simply bound to deliver water; he even pours rain on the ocean, where no one worships him.
Indians in the West can succeed materially. But the challenge remains: will they be able—and willing—to retain their cultural origins?
The first written reference to Boston brahmanas was made by Oliver Wendell Holmes. In an essay published in 1860 Holmes wrote of the “brahmin cast of New England … the harmless and innocent, untitled aristocracy.
To live a satisfying life in perfect health is possible, but one must have actual knowledge of the body and the soul and of the purpose of health. This knowledge is given in the Vedic literature. By turning to the Vedas, we can go beyond the confusion caused by shortsighted views of health and happiness.
It is true that sometimes if a sincere devotee maintains some material attachment, Krishna will crush his material success so that he is left only with his attachment to Krishna. After all, material opulence in this world is temporary.
Dhruva’s stepmother said, “My dear boy, you cannot sit on the lap of your father. Although you are his son, you are disqualified because you have not taken birth in my womb.”
Americans tend to scorn India’s recent national ban on cow slaughter. We have difficulty appreciating the Hindus’ view that the cows are holy, and most Americans have little knowledge of how a rural economy like India’s is dependent on the life of the cow and her by-products.
Most of the Bowery’s 7,600 homeless men slept in lodging houses that required them to vacate the rooms during the day. Having nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, they would loiter on the street—standing silently on the sidewalks, leaning against walls, or shuffling slowly along.