Music Question

Dear Friends,

I feel pulled to write something today. I've been going through some unprecedented challenges in my life over the past year or so. It's been cathartic and also a period of learning. I have returned to the process of writing songs, which gives me great pleasure and purpose. I've submitted some of those songs to a company called 'Songer' who use AI to produce my songs. There are two reasons why I chose to use AI to produce my songs: (1) My singing voice is severely compromised due to past trauma, so I prefer to depend on others to sing on my behalf, and (2) My hands shake, so it is quite difficult now to play the piano and guitar, therefore, I prefer to rely on outside help to provide instrumentation. I have not yet made my songs public, but I'm hopeful of the prospects of establishing a relationship with a company called American Songwriter. They are running a contest to which I have submitted several songs. I feel that some of my songs are acceptable--maybe even good--and am looking forward to finding out if one or more of my songs can attract an audience. I have created my own genre 'Krishna Country' so that country songs submitted by myself and other devotees can have our own unique identity.

I also have a question for all of you. I recorded about forty songs (non-professionally, unplugged, at Bennet House Records and in my little makeshift bedroom studio) between 1996 and 2015 that I have posted on SoundCloud. I would like to re-record those songs, as the sound quality has seriously deteriorated over the years. What would you suggest I do with my songs? Should I submit them to Songer, even though I am unable to send them an audio file? Or should I seek out a producer who can actually keep my melodies and chord progressions as they are and add additional instrumentation for a fuller sound?

I would deeply appreciate any input. Wishing you all well and looking forward to any and all comments,

Phalini

Ever had your wings clipped?

I just had an experience that I had to journal about. I was lying in bed, feeling the need to listen to some beautiful, soothing music to lull me to sleep. So I went onto SoundCloud and clicked on one of my songs. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it. So I listened to another one. And another. And another. All in all, I think I listened to about eight or nine songs. It was a lovely concert, and the whole time I was listening, I was smiling the smile of victory and satisfaction. 

Demons with hateful eyes and scary faces kept popping into my mind's eye. I ignored them, kept smiling and kept listening. 

They were envious of me because long ago they had tried very hard to discourage me from composing and recording music. I didn't listen to them. I conquered them. I made up songs and instrumentals as they came to me, doing whatever I had to do to remember the melodies and the lyrics that I had heard in my mind. I saved up my allowances until I had enough money to buy an awesome keyboard and all the rest of the equipment I needed to make recordings. I even bought a sixteen-track CD recorder. It was super hard to figure out how to use it, but I persevered and figured it out. I won.

And now, my friends and family can listen to thirty-seven of my songs whenever they want to. And so can I.

So if you have a talent that you can share with the world, something that you love to do that could possibly be beneficial to others in some way, use it. Do what you love, and do it with love, so that you feel satisfied and so that others who benefit from your work feel satisfied as well. You will leave your legacy for the benefit of the world, and that will give you joy. The more you experience that joy, the more you will heal from the trauma of having had your wings clipped, of having been denied your right to share yourself and your talents with the world.

My dad used to say "Don't let the bastards get you down." If you've ever had your wings clipped and done what you had to do to grow them back , you know how it feels to conquer those demons who make it their business to cut people's wings. Those demons not only clipped my wings, but they also took away my voice. They made my hands shake so that I can't even play the piano anymore. In fact, I can hardly type. But while I still had about 80% of my voice left and before my hands succumbed to Essential Tremor, I fought to record four albums and upload them onto SoundCloud.

Now, I can assure you, it was totally worth it to fight the fight, defeat those demons, and grow my wings again.

Seven Habits of Sincere Spiritual Seekers

 

Six years ago, I met a man online who asked me, "How can we be happy and peaceful if we have committed a grave mistake in our life?" I answered him with the following reply:

If one has committed a grave mistake in his life, he can consider adopting the following suggestions. I call them The Seven Habits of Sincere Spiritual Seekers: 

(1) One should immediately take shelter of God's holy names and cry out to Him like a child cries to its mother. 

(2) One should immediately attempt to rectify himself through good behavior that is pleasing to God.

(3) One should pray to God to help him behave properly. 

(4) One should give up the company of people who tend to lead him astray.

(5) One should gather around himself spiritually-inclined people who are enthusiastic about dedicating themselves to God's service. 

(6) One should endeavor to make his life a life of moment-to-moment loving service to God.

(7) One should pray to God to kindly accept his service. 

We are all full of faults and every one of us has committed grave mistakes as well as countless small mistakes over the course of many lifetimes. In fact, that is one of the features of the conditioned soul--bhrama--that he has a tendency to commit mistakes. So we have to be forgiving of ourselves and our weaknesses, take shelter of God's holy names, and arrange our life so that the people we live with and associate with support us in our spiritual quest. 

Chanting the holy names of God is the most highly recommended process in this age for becoming self-realized. Self-realization means to understand who we are, who God is, and to understand our eternal, loving relationship with Him. The ultimate stage of self-realization involves uncovering our natural love for God and resuming our eternal service to Him. If one has a bona fide name of God to chant, he can chant that name. If one has no bona fide name of God to chant, he can chant Krsna's holy names--Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. (The Hare part is pronounced Huh-ray, the Krsna part is pronounced Krish-na and the Rama part is pronounced Rah-ma.) This is called the maha-mantra, or the great chanting for deliverance, and is the most powerful mantra for cleansing the mind of all unwanted things which block our spiritual progress.

No Atheists in a Foxhole

We are all atheists, to one degree or another. All of us in the material world, that is. For the first time in my life, I am wanting to memorize the following verse: vipadah santu tah sasvat tatra tatra jagad-guro bhavato darsanam yat syad apunar bhava-darsanam I wish that all those calamities would happen again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths. Krsna is trying to teach me to be grateful for all the tests He gives me. I am practicing gratitude because it is a positive emotion and because it is healing. When I think in a reactive way to my husband's stupid behaviors, I get angry, indignant, vengeful and depressed. Such negative emotions drain my energy and throw big roadblocks in my devotional progress. When I think in an honest way, I see the little acts of devotion that my husband renders which are never forgotten by Krsna. Then, with gratitude, my heart softens and I overlook all the stupid, irresponsible mistakes he makes daily due to his condition. I then am no longer appalled by the ridiculous blunders of my demented husband. Rather, a sincere "Thank You" rises up from the ashes at the bottom of my heart, thanking Krsna for reducing my husband to a crazy lunatic. I am then inspired to cry out to Krsna for solace and protection, for guidance how to go on serving my husband with even greater patience and sensitivity, for steadiness in all trying circumstances and for even more gratitude for the insane predicament I find myself in. That is why calamities are such a blessing--because they give us incentive to give up our atheism and call out to Krsna with utter desperation and absolute surrender, like a child crying for his mother. Sooner or later, we will all realize that we are--each and every one of us--in our own desperate circumstantial foxholes, faced with the need for protection and saving grace. To whom will we turn for succour? Krsna is there in our hearts, waiting. He's there in our foxhole with us, waiting for us to cry out to Him for shelter. We just have to turn toward Him and recognize our dearest, most loyal friend. At that point, we are no longer an atheist. When will we realize we are in a foxhole, needing to be saved? The answer is, we will realize our awkward circumstances when we recognize that Krsna is our best friend with our best interest at heart, when we begin to practice gratitude for the painful lessons He gives us in this world, and when we cry out to Him with helpless desperation, like a child crying for his mother. At that point, Krsna will lift us out of the foxhole and take us back home to His eternal shelter, where we will no longer see repeated births and deaths.

Timed, Numbered Lists

When things are too hard, or even when they're not, I write lists. It makes the big things seem smaller, easier to tackle. When I add numbers to the left of the to-do items, saying to myself, This is most urgent, so it gets a one, this is second most urgent, so it gets a two, etc, my mind starts to relax and my body relaxes along with my mind. I start to feel happy and focused on what I need to do. Then, to the right of each item, I designate a duration of time I allow myself to work on completing that task. When I assign lengths of time allowed for engaging in accomplishing each item--especially when I use a timer and stop when the timer beeps--I take a deep breath and spring into action, feeling empowered by those numbers. Somehow, lists empower me, my timer motivates me and numbers work magic on my mind. I love lists, I love numbers, and I love my timer. By the end of the day, I get more items checked off than on days when I don't write a numbered to-do list that I time myself to accomplish. And when I accomplish more, I feel better about myself.

Person and Prayer

The Holy Name is a person. The Supreme Person. Chanting the Holy Name is a prayer, a prayer to the Supreme Person, asking Him to please engage us in His service, asking Him to accept us back into His pastimes, asking Him to purify our hearts so that we can resume our eternal identity as His loving servant. So chanting the Holy Name is a prayer to the Supreme Person, who is non-different from His name. The Holy Name or the maha-mantra--Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare--is the Supreme Person. And chanting that Holy Name is a prayer to that same Supreme Person. This is what I am meditating on as I chant my japa today.

Assisting the Gopis

Every mornig at Mangala Arati we sing 'nikunjayuno ratikeli siddhyai' glorifying our spiritual master for being dear to Radha and Krsna because of always assisting Their gopi friends by arranging delightful rendezvous for the Divine Couple in the spiritual world. While he was here on earth, Srila Prabhupada served a gopi--Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Now he is in the spiritual world assisting the gopis. So this verse of Gurvastam was always applicable to our spiritual master, both here in this world and in the spiritual world.

Insulting Assumption

Anyone else ever had the experience of being told that their undiagnosed chronic pain is psychosomatic? "It could be referred pain, or it might be imagined." How insulting is that? I've had chronic pain in my lower right inguinal region for three years. I have had three sonograms done to try to find out what the heck is causing the pain. Nobody can find the source. So when confronted with their own inability to discover the problem, some doctors have had the audacity to blame it on my mind. Say what???

Garland Seva by Guest Author: Bhakta David Heal

I was blessed to make garlands for Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara last night and also for Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta. As I was working on the garlands, I thought of Bhakta David Heal, who is a florist up in Virginia. I wondered if he had ever been engaged in the delightful service of making garlands for Their Lordships and the Acaryas. I just received a WhatsApp message from him today. He gave me permission to share his post on my blog. From Bhakta David: "I always love serving the deities in the flower department. I remember a few years back when I was in PV (Prabhupada Village) for Janmastami. There weren’t many devotees around that year. I picked marigolds all day a couple days before and made all the garlands for decorating the altar and vyasasana. I spent many hours stringing marigolds by myself while listening to Srila Prabhupada's lectures. I also made massive pamades (big round spheres of marigolds to hang from the garlands as added accents). It was so blissful for me. I was extremely tired at the end, but I couldn’t sleep! When I laid down to rest that night I wept with joy because I was overwhelmed with emotion having served so intensely for days. What a gift Prabhupada Village has been for me. Hari Hari!"

Eternally Playful

 I have a hard time surrendering to going to bed at night. I always feel like I'm going to miss out on something fun. 

In the spiritual world, people are always playing and having fun. We are originally from the spiritual world, so that is what we're used to. We are used to an atmosphere where everyone is joyful, joking, playing and having fun all the time. So it's natural for us to expect happiness and joy around every corner. It is natural that we feel anxious to return to that place where we used to always have fun at every moment.

Tonight I am praying, "My Dear Lord Krishna, You are the most fun Person and I am Your eternal servant. I am meant for giving You pleasure and by giving You pleasure, I feel pleasure. My Dear Lord, if You so desire, please allow me to experience the pleasure of always giving You pleasure."

When we pray to return to our natural engagement of rendering loving service to Krishna, Krishna hears our prayer, and He arranges for us to be engaged in various kinds of service for His pleasure. By pleasing Krishna, we become happy. 

Tomorrow is the appearance day of Srimati Radharani, the Supreme Goddess who is eternally engaged in the most pleasing pastimes with Sri Krishna. We can pray to Srimati Radharani to involve us in those loving pastimes. She can show us how to please Krishna and thereby become pleased ourselves.

"My Dear Srimati Radharani, if you so desire, please engage me in some pleasing service to Lord Sri Krishna. I hope in this way He will become pleased, and you will also become pleased. By pleasing Lord Krishna and you, I will experience the bliss that is natural to me."

To be eternally playful is our natural propensity, an important feature of our eternal relationship with and service to Krishna. So it's to be expected that we want to play all the time. But while we're here in the material world, we have to practice regulation and adherence to duty in order to learn how to transcend material proclivities and desires. Upon achieving freedom from identification with the body--the bodily concept of life--and giving up all material inclinations and hankerings, we will come to the level of pure goodness. At that point, life becomes full of joy, and we experience the natural affection for Krishna that is native to our heart.

So I'm telling myself tonight, Go to bed. Leave your desires to stay up and have fun in the care of Srimati Radharani and Lord Sri Krishna. They are the original authors of all fun activities. When you become regulated in your duties, performing your work for their pleasure, you will eventually become purified so that you can resume your eternal duties in the spiritual world--as an assistant to the Lord and His eternal consort Srimati Radharani in their pastimes of eternal play. Till then, take rest.  

Give Up Meat-Eating

"Those who are animal killers, their brain is dull as stone. They cannot understand anything. Therefore meat-eating should be stopped. In order to revive the finer tissues of the brain to understand subtle things, one must give up meat-eating." (Srila Prabhupada, Lecture, London, August 24, 1973) 

Forgiveness

Krsna is the most forgiving Person and we are part and parcel of Him. If we want to forgive someone, He helps us to forgive. If we know that resentment is counter-productive to our happiness and we want to want to forgive, He helps us want to forgive, then He helps us to forgive. We can't do anything without Krsna's help. We can't even be Krsna conscious without Krsna's help. So we can't forgive without Krsna's help. And if we work with Him to forgive, He will fill our heart with such satisfaction that we will be inclined to come to Him again and again to ask for His help whenever we have trouble forgiving someone. 

Rama's Monkeys

The monkey servants of Lord Rama want nothing more intensely than to see Sita and Rama reunited. That's why they're willing to give up their lives to help Rama defeat Ravana and get Sita back. To those warriors, reuniting Sita with Rama is worth everything, including the loss of their lives.

Of course, there is also the desire of the Lord to relish different mellows, including viraha, or separation. If the Lord desires to taste the intense sweetness of separation from His beloved, then the devotee assists Him in that arrangement. But always, the devotee is desiring to see his Lord, the King of his heart, reunited with His beloved Queen, the Queen of the devotee's heart.

The Welfare of Others

My husband often quotes Srila Prabhupada as saying, "The mind becomes peaceful by thinking of the welfare of others." I find that when I pray for someone , I automatically feel soft-hearted because praying for someone puts my mind in a compassionate mood. The December book distribution marathon has already started in many temples around the world. Everyone gets into the act, so to speak, of approaching strangers and offering them a chance to take one of Srila Prabhupada's books. Today I had a tiny realization. When we distribute Srila Prabhupada's books, we are thinking of the welfare of others in a deeply significant way. We are giving them an opportunity to make the decision to leave this material world, to escape the endless cycle of repeated births and deaths, and return home, back to the spiritual world where they came from and where they belong. I thought, If I want to give someone a book, and I simultaneously pray for the person to have an open mind, if I pray for that person to want to take the book, then before I offer them the book, maybe if I pray to Krsna, Krsna will hear my prayer, and maybe He'll help this soul feel attracted to taking the book. Maybe Krsna will help this person desire to take the book. I am guessing that this praying-before-approaching-a-person is probably a normal procedure for sincere, seasoned, successful book distributors, but for me. this realization is like an "Ah-HAH" moment.

Self-Effulgent

At a Bhakti-Vrksha program near Udupi which my husband and I attended, one devotee in the audience raised his hand and asked my husband to tell about his remembrances of Srila Prabhupada. My husband told the story of how in Mayapur in early 1977, Srila Prabhupada had circumambulated Sri Sri Radha-Madhava three times, ringing the bell each time, and had then begun to dance in front of the Deities, jumping up and down with his arms raised in the air. At that time, Srila Prabhupada emitted a striking effulgence--bright as the light of the sun--from his entire body. My husband is not the only devotee who saw it.

My Prabhu then went on to tell how he had read recently in the Srimad-Bhagavatam about the Nava-Yogendras, the nine sons of Lord Rsabhadeva who were self-effulgent, shining rsis, fully Krsna conscious and bright with their own natural light that emanated from within. This light emanating from the bodies of those nine great sages was described in the eleventh canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. King Nimi had invited the Nava-Yogendras to come to his palace and when they came to visit the king, he saw how effulgent they were and his heart became filled with ecstasy:

"Overwhelmed by transcendental joy, the King humbly bowed his head and then proceeded to question the nine sages. These nine great souls glowed with their own effulgence and thus appeared equal to the four Kumäras, the sons of Lord Brahmä." It is explained in the purport that the effulgence emitted by the Nava-Yogendras was not due to their ornaments, but rather sourced from their natural brightness as realized souls: "Çréla Çrédhara Svämé has pointed out that the word sva-rucä indicates that the nava-yogendras glowed from their own spiritual effulgence and not due to their ornaments or any other cause." (SB 11.2.27) This information underscored my husband's experience of seeing Srila Prabhupada, a fully Krsna conscious, self-realized soul who emitted a dazzling effulgence that emanated in all directions from his body, and also substantiated that such an effulgence, when manifested from the body of a self-realized soul, is not produced by his jewels or ornaments or any external, material source. It is the natural light of the soul.

Srila Prabhupada many times used the term "self-effulgent" to mean glowing with natural light. He ascribed this description to Lord Sri Krsna, to the spiritual planets within the spiritual sky, and also to a true acarya. 

We are all self-effulgent sparks of Lord Krsna "The individual soul, being part and parcel of the Lord, is also self-effulgent" (SB 11.2.27 Ppt), but our natural glow is hampered by our material mind. "The material mind is not a figment of the empiric imagination. It is a real envelope and has to be completely discarded. It will not do to imagine this enveloping darkness as possessing anything in common with the light. The material mind is like a sheet of impenetrable darkness that completely shuts out the light of the soul. The soul is by his nature self-effulgent and has nothing to do with the material mind which acts as a screen to cut off the light of the soul from the view of the observer who uses the mind for such a purpose. This is fact and not a hypothesis like the so-called 'truths' and 'facts' conceived by the material mind in the vanity of its ignorance. The spiritual realisation of the categorical difference and relation of utter incompatibility between mind and soul is the first unique experience on the threshold of the awakened spiritual life." ("Thakur Haridas" Part I, BTG Magazine #14, 1967, from the book Shri Krishna Chaitanya by Professor Sanniyal) 

When we become fully Krsna conscious, completely uncovering our love for Krsna, then our natural brightness shines from within our hearts. This is the meaning of "self-effulgent" as it pertains to the individual soul. Not only are we souls naturally shining with spiritual light, but it is our duty to return to our natural state of pure Krsna consciousness so that our native effulgence can again manifest. 

Krsna-katha is Unlimited

When Vaisnavas sit together and happily talk about Krsna in a relaxed and friendly manner, the talks about Krsna flow naturally from one topic to another. Each topic that is brought up brings to mind another topic about Krsna, and in this way, "krsna-katha" is unlimited. Just as hearing the pastimes and qualities of the Lord can go on and on forever and ever because Krsna and His qualities and pastimes are unlimited, so also conversations about topics related to Krsna can go on and on ad infinitum because Krsna is the unlimited Lord and there is an unlimited number of topics that devotees can joyfully discuss together in relation to Krsna. Devotees love to talk about Krsna because such discussions cause great delight within the hearts of the devotees. "The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me. Their lives are surrendered unto Me, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss enlightening one another and conversing about Me." (Bg 10.9)

Contraception Condemned

Father’s responsibility Posted: 25 May 2019 10:52 AM PDT If you can stop your children’s birth and death, then beget children. This is the sastric injunction. And if the father does not know how to stop his own birth and death, then what is the use of producing children? The father should be so sympathetic with the children, with the sons, that he must know what is the pains and pleasure of birth and death. So every parent desires welfare of his children, of their children. So this is the greatest welfare, that “This child has come in my womb, he has become my son. This is the last time. No more birth and death. He will be educated in that way.” That is father’s responsibility. Not that...get him meat-eating, and get him fat. However fat he may be, he’ll die. [laughter] You cannot stop his death simply by making him fat like elephant. Therefore it is said, dharmaviruddha. Don’t beget children if you have no responsibility. But they think that “We’ll have sex life, but we shall avoid this responsibility. So then let us use contraceptive.” This is greatest sinful life. Greatest sinful life. You are killing, murderer. Now in the Western countries they are actually killing. They have made law. So if the society has become so awfully sinful, how they can expect peace and prosperity? That is not possible. From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Bhagavad-gita 7.11–12 — February 25, 1974, Bombay

22107: The Train to Vaikuntha

CC Madhya 22.107 says, "nitya-siddha krsna-prema sadhya kabhu naya/ sravanadi suddha citte karaye udaya--Pure love for Krsna is eternally established in the hearts of the living entities. It is not something to be gained from another source. When the heart is purified by hearing and chanting, this love naturally awakens." (Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu instructs Sanatana Goswami)

My husband and I are on a train heading for Nagpur, Maharastra, India. We have just completed eighteen days of chanting the holy names and sharing krsna-upadesa, krsna-katha and krsna-prasada with the devotees in Salem, Madurai, Ramanathapuram (all in Tamil Nadu) and Shimoga, Karnataka. We are now on our way to celebrate the appearance of Lord Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu with more kirtan, pravachan and krsna-prasada in association with the devotees in Nagpur. Gaura-purnima (Lord Caitanya's Appearance Day) is a perfect day on which to share my husband's realization. As we rolled along on the train today, he suddenly flashed a big smile at me and with wide-open eyes shared with me his realization: "Every train has a five-digit number. 22107 is the number of this amazing verse, and it's the number of the train that's going to take us back home, back to Godhead!" We laughed together and exulted about this funny realization. We plan to share it with other devotees wherever we meet them.

Mother Yasoda's Mercy

Dear Young Devotee Mothers Who Are Overwhelmed With Too Much To Do:

Please know that there are many young devotee mothers who struggle just like you do. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I sympathize with your predicament, so I have written the following blogpost for you.

My daughter Kamalini has three young children, two of whom are younger than four years of age. I visit her often to help her out, as she is pretty overwhelmed with the tasks of being a housewife and mother of three little kids.

I love grandmothering, but lately, it's become more challenging than I had ever anticipated. I enjoy living in a clean, neat atmosphere, so I am constantly tidying up around her house. Srila Prabhupada recommended that we "leave a place cleaner than we find it" so I am always trying to follow this wise advice. But it's a bigger challenge than I can handle. Someone once said that cleaning a house when toddlers are around is like stringing a necklace with no knot at the end. My daughter's two younger children have developed a habit of immediately undoing any straightening that I do. The three-year-old can pick up a huge box of toys (she is very strong) and dump it out on the floor immediately after I have just picked up all the toys and put them in the box. The one-year-old has a penchant for climbing, and he is frequently found sitting on the upper bunk of his brother's bunk beds, throwing whatever he can find as far as he can throw it and laughing heartily at his monkey-like antics.

For the past few months while living in my daughter's home, I have experienced a kind of deja vu. It feels like a reversion to my days of being a young mother with young children. Life in a home with two wild toddlers is chaotic. I see how my daughter struggles and I remember clearly how it can be exhausting trying to satisfy the needs and desires of young children and at the same time satisfy the needs and desires of a husband, which include preparing delicious meals served hot and on-time, keeping the house and car neat and clean, keeping the laundry washed, dried, folded and put away in closets and drawers (which promptly gets removed and thrown hither and thither by rascally toddlers) and keeping oneself clean, pretty, fresh, cheerful and internally calm amidst the crying of babies with daily injuries or empty tummies. Even one of these is a monumental task in itself, what to speak of trying to do them all in a day (I often feel that 24 hours is not enough), and on top of all this service, maintaining a vow of chanting at least 16 rounds daily!

So I got an inspiration recently. Mother Yasoda is famous for her loving care of little Krishna. Yet, she doesn't neglect her household duties. She is always balancing childcare with other tasks. So I decided I'm going to start praying to Mother Yasoda to help me finish my 17 rounds every day (I chant 17, because for years I couldn't finish my 16 rounds when my babies were small. I just had too much to do. So now, I try to always chant an extra round each day as make-up for all those missed rounds. I'm gradually making them up). I'm praying to Yasoda Ma now to help me do all the services that I need to do--childcare, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and service to my husband, with love and devotion for Krishna--while at the same time completing my sadhana and doing it nicely with love and devotion and full attention.

I trust that Mother Yasoda will help me. She is an ocean of mercy and the mother of the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna. She understands the predicament of moms, so surely she can bestow her mercy upon us busy mothers (and grandmothers) so that we can accomplish everything we need to accomplish daily within the small span of twenty-four hours.

Reconnecting with Lord Rama

On April 1, 1974, I had an experience that made a huge impact on me and remains in my memory as a turning point in my devotional life. Over the years since then, I have sometimes heard about devotees shedding tears of ecstasy, and while proof-reading the Caitanya-caritamrta, I ran across descriptions of Lord Caitanya displaying ecstatic symptoms which included profuse expulsions of tears of love for Lord Jagannatha. Sometimes Srila Prabhupada would also exhibit ecstatic symptoms in which he shed tears. We all remember the pastime that Mohanananda Prabhu shared which was quoted in Vaiyasaki Prabhu's book Radha-Damodara Vilasa:


Mohanänanda: Prabhupäda’s room was just off the temple room in La Cienega, and Visnujana and I sneaked back to see him one time. I was a new devotee and I was just following Visnujana. I would have followed him absolutely, anything he did. We could see light coming out of Prabhupäda’s room as if there were some kind of spotlight. We actually thought it was a spotlight. There was this effulgent light coming out through the cracks of the door. It was a long room with a long hallway. So we crept in. It looked as if someone was shooting a movie under a high halogen lamp. Prabhupäda was sitting at the end of the hallway on his pillow. He looked absolutely effulgent. Brahmajyoti. The spiritual sky. It was pure, bright yellow light, like an aura, with Prabhupäda at the center of it. Tears were just flying out of his eyes, across his desk, across the room. I was amazed. Tears literally flew out of his eyes. It was a remarkable thing to see his tears.
Visnujana turned to me and just said, “He’s talking to Krsna.” I was dumb struck. I thought this was an incredible experience, because it was one of the first rare visions of personalism that I had been given. We were absolutely awestruck. We just hit the floor and backed out. Prabhupäda never acknowledged us.

This pastime, as well as the numerous references Srila Prabhupada has given in his books of devotees crying in ecstasy gave me the understanding of what took place that evening.

It was Rama-navami. I didn't know what day it was, and even if I had heard the words "Rama-navami" I would not have understood what they meant. I was a new devotee and had no idea who Lord Ramacandra was, nor whose arms the two green arms holding arrows and a bow represented on the painting of Sad-bhuja which hung on the wall of the temple room were, nor had I heard anything about this holy day of Lord Rama's appearance on this planet. But when I first heard the devotees in the little Watseka Avenue temple room with its bright yellow walls and pink lacey curtains singing "Sita-Rama jaya Sita-Rama, Sita-Rama jaya Sita-Rama, Raghupati Raghava Raja Rama, patita-pavana Sita Rama" I felt a thrill that I had not known before. I stood at the double-doors of the temple room for a few moments before entering. I had never heard such a beautiful melody nor such captivating, soul-attracting lyrics. I entered the temple room quietly and stood to the right of the door, against the wall, feeling a little shy and not wanting to be seen. There were other devotees standing to the right and left of me. I don't know who they were nor why they were standing against the wall, but I nestled in between them to behold the wondrous spectacle before my eyes. I watched and listened with great interest as the chanting of "Sita-Rama" permeated every fiber of my being. The dancing devotees in their saris and dhotis appeared to be celestial angels glorifying the Lord with heavenly hymns. The devotees were all dancing in unison, moving as if they were floating, back and forth, facing the Deities. Luckily, they seemed oblivious to my presence.

Suddenly, without warning, without any preliminary premonition in my physical body that would have given me an idea that something strange was about to happen to me, my eyes began to shoot tears like two fire hoses with powerful spray nozzles. I didn't feel sadness or anger or any other emotion that in the past would have brought me to tears, nor had I ever had an experience of tears doing anything other than rolling down my cheeks. I felt at the time an unknown emotion which I would now call "ecstasy," although at the time I had no idea what that word meant. It was the first time in my life that I had ever cried cold tears. All the tears I had cried in the past had been hot tears that burned my eyes. But these tears felt good. I was not embarrassed because I was mesmerized by the chanting and in too much of an emotional state of happiness to let anything bother me. The devotees on either side of me might have known what was happening, but I didn't because I was too new to the movement and hadn't learned about ecstatic symptoms yet. The tears kept shooting out of my eyes for some time. No one complained, "You're making a mess on the floor! Clean up those puddles!" I don't remember when the crying stopped, or seeing puddles on the floor in front of me. I just remember the painless, ecstatic experience of projectile tears exploding from my eyes upon hearing the names of Sita and Rama. I realize now as I look back on that evening that at that moment, by Srila Prabhupada's causeless mercy and grace, I was reunited with the Lord of my heart, Lord Sri Raghunatha.

Later in my devotional childhood, someone explained to me that happy tears are cold, not hot like tears of anger and sadness. Those cold, happy tears that came from my eyes like water from a fire-hydrant are now a sweet reminder of how Srila Prabhupada revealed to me on that delicious evening of April 1, 1974, that I am the eternal servant of Lord Ramacandra.

Someone remarked recently how each and every devotee sees Krsna according to his or her own personal relationship with Krsna in service and love. My personal experience has been that often, when I read Srila Prabhupada's words, he mentions Lord Rama or Hanuman or some topic connected with the pastimes of the Ramayana. This to me is evidence that Srila Prabhupada is always with me, encouraging me in my attachment for Lord Sri Ramacandra. To me, the fact that Srila Prabhupada frequently mentions Lord Rama in the pages of his books and allows me to see these nectarean anecdotes in his books and teachings is further evidence of the truth of my eternal attachment to Lord Rama, realized through the causeless mercy of my beloved spiritual master A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.