HUMAN-LIKE

Oh my Lord..
Playful.
Yet all powerful..
Human-like
Unlimited
Let me always hear
from those near and dear to You
Bring me closer to You.
Free me from the taste for temporary material things.

ROOT CANAL HELL PART 1

What am I not getting?
The crown on a molar placed 5 years ago was not seated properly.
I knew it at the time there would be problems later
But the dentist was done.
He wasn't going to try to work on it any more.

So yes now the tooth is infected
And the bone underneath tooth.
I had to go through three dentists
before I could find someone who was willing
to commit the terrible sin of pulling a tooth.
Shock and horror!!!

If I hear "root canal" one more time
I might actually kill someone.
I don't get it.
Dentists fill and remove teeth.
What's the big deal?

Finally after months of this much to do about nothing
I have an appointment with an oral surgeon.
Why it has to be an oral surgeon?
It's not complicated.
Just an abscess with a little infection underneath.
Clearly visible on the x-ray. Even I can see it.

I feel like I am about to do something totally abominable.
Have a tooth pulled....
Prophetic voices from the sky shouting
"No! not that..."

Dentistry like everything else
has become way too complicated
driven by the desire to keep the illusion
of permanence of the material body.

ROOT CANAL HELL PART 2

The propaganda for root canal hell is so strong.
I had to go to three dentists before anyone
would just pull the tooth.
"Oh, don't you want to "save" the tooth?"
" No. Please just take it out."
They would not do it.
Finally I had to go to an oral surgeon, can you believe it?
A surgeon for a simple extraction!!!
$115 for a full mouth x-ray.
$150 for the "consultation"
Which consisted of... "Yup the tooth is done"
$350 for 3 hours of drama, 4 different waiting rooms...
and pages and pages of paper work
for less than 1 minute of 2 little tweaks of a pair of pliers...
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Crowns are the beginning of problems.
If the tooth doesn't get cleaned out properly
and the crown isn't placed just right
it becomes a "petri dish" under the crown
and infection and bacteria go down into the roots and bones.
And from there the blood stream and who knows where else.
All with no pain. It can fester in there for years
with "no visible signs...."
Leaking into the rest of the body.
Hey who needs vaccines... or wars even...
Just give free dental work.

Gaura purnima..
The real business of the very living entity.
With or without teeth...
With or without money.
With or without intelligence.
With or without purity.
With or without association

IF WE REALLY KNEW

He is Lord Vishnu. 
He is Krishna. 
He is Radharani... 
He is all the incarnations. 
He displays all this in this incarnation. Gauranga.
Plus He makes love of Godhead available in the mood of Vraja..
If we really knew.....

CLOCK WATCHING

At work or school
looking at the clock
When will it be over?
Time up.
My life....

EVERYWHERE I LOOK

Everywhere I look I see helpless hungry faces
Who will feed them?
It is not just food for the body they are craving
It is food for the soul.
They do not know how to get the nourishment they need
They are eating all nonsense.
Chewing the chewed.
Who will take them to their heart
and feed them as if they were their own children?
Only the Pure Devotee Spiritual Master can do that.

ODDLY ENOUGH

So I float in a kind of ocean.
Not excited about anything at all.
A timeless place.
And when I hear about Krishna in any of His manifestations
it is like I am there.
I'm not sure this is what Srila Prabhupada had in mind
but what can I do?

WE DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING

The outside forces confuse us.
We become stronger as we continue to practice.

A lot of it is learning by making mistakes.
Not the best kind of intelligence, 
but if we can learn eventually.. then at least we can learn.

Our time here is very short and
the time goes very quickly actually.

I don't care where I am
as long as I can remember Krishna.

I am less than an insect in significance.

We don't have to "do anything" to "earn" Krishna's love.
There is no way to earn Krishna's love.

All we have to do is love Krishna.
Like Arjuna... he didn't fight the battle "to win Krishna's love,"
he fought the battle "because he loved Krishna"
and "he knew Krishna loved him."
Win or lose he was victorious.

WHAT ABOUT KRISHNA

What about the economy and the bankers stealing everything?
What about Krishna!

What about the corrupt governments and all the wars?
What about Krishna!

What about the environment and all the pollution?
What about Krishna!

What about all the mistakes I've made in the past?
What about Krishna!

What about ISKCON this and that?
What about Krishna!

What about Krishna?
Now you're talking!

STUPID MIND

I'm sorry I can't be all things to all people.
Only Krishna can do that.
I'm very limited

I'm sorry I can't change the world
Only Krishna can do that.
I'm so tiny.

I'm sorry there is so much suffering
But it is Krishna's problem
Krishna is the Person in charge.

I'm sorry I am so selfish
No one else matters to me
Only where is Krishna?

Where is the constant glorification of Krishna?
I try.
I am interrupted.

Let me hear, Let me hear, Let me hear.

The offerings of the mind

Oh stupid mind.. Shut up.
You are filled with silly fears.
You are haunted with all sorts of ghosts.
You are a storehouse of chewed up and spit out refuse.
Don't bring these things before me.
I'm sure you mean well.
But you are a complete idiot.
If you really want to please me
Always try to answer this one question
"Where is Krishna?"

SRI CHAITANYA CHANDRAMRTA BY SRILA PRABHODANANDA SARASWATI PART 3 CHAPTER 6-7

THE FOUR BENEDICTIONS

The four benedictions:
To the King live long.....Because after death you will have
so much karma to answer for a life of sensual enjoyment

To the sage.... live or die same
For the sage what does it matter where they are.
Always fixed in trance on the supreme Being.

To the butcher... don't live don't die.
Living is miserable.. always seeing blood and killing
and after death the reactions are severe.

To the renunciate... die right away.
Life is so difficult due to the austerities...
Why keep on?

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MEENA THE FISH INCARNATION

Meena is the Fish incarnation.
The first incarnation to appear at the creation of the universe.
Lord Brahma took a little nap unannounced.
When Lord Brahma sleeps there is always an inundation.
The universe began to fill with water.

Lord Matsya appeared first as a very small fish in a few inches of water
and grew larger and larger and larger until only the ocean could accommodate him.

King Satyavrata was instructed to attached a ship to the horn of the fish
and place the Vedas in the ship to be sure to preserve them during the flood.

At that time the Vedas were persons.. not books on paper.
The knowledge was passed from one to another
in succession simply by hearing attentively.
Writing down is recent.

Maybe it is because of the name I have been given
that I am so attracted to reading and recording.

Or maybe it is just because I really can't seem to do anything else.

Being allowed to hang out with Vedavyasa isn't such a bad thing.
But it does require a certain amount of austerity. At least for me.

I'LL BE SEEING YOU

I'll see you in the morning sun

and when the night is new,

I'll be looking at the moon

But I'll be seeing you.

LIMITED... NO ACCESS

Like the ox who is tethered to the grinding wheel
and must go round and round limited to his course of action.
with no access to that which is beyond..

The conditioned souls are bound by the modes of material nature 
and go round and round in the cycle of repeated birth and death
with no access to eternal existence beyond.

AN INEXPERIENCED DENTIST CAN REALLY MAKE LIFE DIFFICULT

If some of my friends remember I posted about an ear problem and got lots of good suggestions. I tried all of them, BTW.

The ear thing is still torture. I think I found the problem finally.
Let's say this... don't let a dentist with only a little experience
work on your teeth. They can really mess EVERYTHING up big time.

He replaced a crown but didn't get it quite right,
so it broke the upper partial. Which he then repaired
but didn't get it quite right and it aggravated the tooth below it.
And started quoting me root canals and crowns
and a full reworking of all my teeth for around $12,000.
What to speak of not having any money...
I can only imagine.... an early grave...

I went to an extraction and denture specialist who took a panoramic xray. 

The tooth is fine, but the bone has become infected
due to the wrong fitting partial.
An inexperienced dentist can really make life difficult.
They make excellent administrators of bad karma.

The specialist seems to think a week of keyflex should clear it up.
If not, the tooth gets pulled.
So the infection from the bone
must be going up into the ear and sinuses as well.

Now I have to find a good dentist.
Oh that was the dentist who tried to keep the gold crown he removed.
I had to pretty much demand to get it.

We all have our little battles.
Don't forget Krishna, and fight.

Oh, the dentists does have a "Bhagavad Gita as it is."
I hope he reads it someday.

DON'T START WITH ME

There is a line at the pharmacy.
I join the line at the end and move up one by one
as the people pick up their medicines and leave.

Now I am in the front of the line...next one to be called.
An older man comes up to me, "Is there a line?"
There obviously was... as there were people standing behind me.
I motion, "Yes, we are waiting in line."

He is disapproving. The sign for waiting in line is a little to the right of us.
"Why are you waiting over there?"
I answered, probably should have just ignored the dumb question...
but seeing a chance to engage in conversation
and maybe introduce Krishna somehow,
I answer, "I just got in the back of the line and they were all standing here."

He snaps back, " You must be from Canada. Are you from Canada?"
I answer, "No. Are you from Canada?"
Now he is fuming...with a very thick New York accent.
"No I am not from Canada! Don't start with me!"

Just to push things a little further...
"You must be from New York." Now he is ready to kill me.
"No! I'm not from New York I'm from Florida 55 years.
and you mind your own business and shut the hell up."

This happens with a lot of old people.
They respond in very strange ways.
Who is he talking to? His wife that used to nag him?
A son or a daughter who disagreed with him on things?

It was lot to take the full force of his venom, as if he knew me.
to take the chastisement he meant for someone else.

Perhaps envy has engulfed him so that he lashes out
at anyone and anything for any reason...
like a snake that strikes simply if there is some movement nearby.

At the counter I turned around and held my japa beads high out of the bag and announced very loudly so everyone could hear...
"I will pray for you."
To my surprise his face softened and he replied in a kind of gentle voice, "You need to."

The whole exchange was so intense I had to do something...
I ran up to the very next person I saw...
an employee, middle aged thin black lady with very large glasses
on her thin face probably from Haiti and said
with a lot of enthusiasm, getting her full attention,
"I have to tell you something!!"
Her eyes got wide...
"Hare Krishna!"
She smiled so much. From ear to ear.

IT IS NOT PREJUDICE

Sometimes when I am describing something that happened
and the people involved I mention physical characteristics...
Thin Black lady from Haiti, or the Korean dentist,
or the German man with the thick accent, the Indian math teacher...
But I don't necessarily single out in description
people that have similar characteristic to myself.
The white person from Florida.

Since I am the one doing the describing
it is natural that things will be seen from my perspective
and people that appear different from me by bodily characteristics,
race or national origin or sex... I will make note of it.

It is not prejudice. It is just the way the set is arranged for the performance. The challenge within that setting is to find Krishna.
Just making everything all one with no variety is not going to work.
Yes we are not these bodies
but they are what we have to work with.
There are differences. There are varieties.
It is a festival of human costumes.
8,400.000......
The differences are wonderful. Like birds...
So many different types of birds...

RECURRING DREAM

As a child I used to have a recurring dream, it went on for months.

I was an astronaut. They sent me up in a spaceship
and when I came back to earth and everyone was greeting me
when I went to hug my mother and father there was nothing there. 
The forms were there but there was no substance.

I would panic and get back in the spaceship...
go up and try to find the real home.
When I would come down and get out of the spaceship
the same thing would happen again.
This would go on all night long.
I dreaded having to go to sleep.
Every night for months. I had to stop it.

So I decided to kill myself in the dream.
I would remain as awake as I could when the dream started..
go up in the space ship... and then jump out of it in outer space.

It worked I never had the dream again.
Maybe something left over from a previous lifetime.
Impersonal realization or something.
But where is the substance?
Where is Krishna?

Interestingly Srila Vyasadeva mentions this
in the first verse of "Srimad Bhagavatam..."

"...I meditate upon that eternally effulgent Lord who is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations and yet is beyond them. It is He only who first imparted Vedic knowledge unto the heart of Brahma, the first created being. Through Him this world, like a mirage, appears real even to great sages and demigods. Because of Him, the material universes, created by the three modes of nature, appear to be factual, although they are unreal...." SB 1.1.1

MY PEOPLE

The material situation is so unpredictable. For now... it's okay.
Minimum of disturbance.. Solitary is good for me.
I may be a little retarded or something. Maybe slightly autistic.
I have never been able to just socialize..

Anyway... old age will get most everyone anyway.
1 out of 2 ends up with dementia. So I will fit right in.
Devotees also. Devotees are not spared these things.
Just.. they can deal with it in Krishna consciousness.

I was always looking for "my people"
I thought my family were my people, but they were not...
I thought my friends growing up were my people... but they were not...
then I thought I finally found "my people" the devotees
and they were not either.

My people are on another plant not even in this universe,
not even in this creation.

I see devotees posting family and friends on Facebook.
Everyone is having such a good time. That is for them. Not for me.
I want to go home.
Where there are no smelly feet, bad breath, bo, stools and urines, toothaches, diarrhea. mucus, itches... I'm done.

Where is Krishna?

CLEAN OR UNCLEAN - IT DOESN'T MATTER !!!

Limited.... no access...restricted... 
By the illusory energy of the Lord
In an instant the covering can be removed.
The power of the Holy Name.

Clean or unclean, it doesn't matter!!!!

oṁ apavitraḥ pavitro vā
sarvāvasthāṁ gato 'pi vā
yaḥ smaret puṇḍarīkākṣaṁ
sa bahyābhyantara-śuciḥ
śrī viṣṇu śrī viṣṇu śrī viṣṇu

The meaning of this mantra is apavitraḥ pavitro vā. 
Apavitraḥ means unclean and pavitra means clean. 
So anyone who may be unclean or clean, it doesn't matter. 

Apavitraḥ pavitro vā sarvāvasthāṁ gato 'pi vā. 
Sarva means all. Avastha means condition. 
"In whatever condition one may be, either unclean or clean,"
yaḥ, "anyone who," smaret, "remembers,"puṇḍarīkākṣam... 

Puṇḍarīkākṣam means Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's another name is puṇḍarīkākṣam. 
Yaḥ smaret puṇḍarīkākṣam, sa: "That person," bahya, "externally," abhyantaram,"internally," śuciḥ, "becomes at once purified." 

Śrī-viṣṇu śrī-viṣṇu śrī-viṣṇu. Puṇḍarīkākṣam, Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu. 
So this is the remembrance. Śrī-viṣṇu, namaḥ śrī-viṣṇu śrī-viṣṇu.

SAN FRANCISCO 1968

TELL ME THERE ISN'T KRISHNA

My very first job for summer junior year high school.
My father had a friend who ran a pharmacy
in the small town where we lived and talked him into hiring me
for the front counter... candy, newspapers, cough drops, etc
. 
The delivery boy was the high school rowdy.
Tough kid, stayed back a few grades, older and bigger
than everyone else and mean.
He would hide in the stock room out back
and when I had to go there to restock an item
he would spring out at me, pin me against the wall
and choked me to within an inch of my life. It was terrifying.
I couldn't breath at all. He would laugh.

I told my boss but he didn't seem interested.
Too busy. This went on all summer. It was miserable.
One day in the fall I saw headlines in the town paper....
this boy had been decapitated when he was out joy riding
drunk with friends in a convertible and had stood up long enough
to connect with a low tree limb...

Tell me there isn't Krishna...

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