WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

     Beautiful morning…Light breeze… Peacocks calling to each other somewhere nearby… After a generous shower during the night, the grass and plants refreshed and ready to meet the activities of the day… Tulsi devi glowing a glorious emerald green. Seated on the mat on the ground in front of the Tulsi garden chanting Hare Krishna Mahamantra on beads…

     The first few rounds… 108 mantras each round…are mechanical. Like when there is noise in the background. The sounds are coming out of my mouth but they are distant. I am thinking so many things. The grass, trees, what I ate last night, the conversation with the neighbor yesterday, the bank account... On and on... By the 4th round I don't want to chant anymore. Time to do something else… anything else. Just not chanting! 

     Krishna is trying to get my attention and I am stubbornly distracted. It is like saying "NO" directly to Krishna. I keep chanting . And the struggle begins. I am now becoming aware that my mind is out of control. It is going here there and everywhere. The last straw in the rampage is the stirring of sex desire.

     Now the battle really begins. I've been here before. It is not where I want to go. There is a lizard sitting on the walkway. I see him and try to remind myself that there is birth, death, old, age and disease…the cycle of samsara. Do I want to take a body like the lizard since there is no way to know for sure what birth I could take. But reminding myself of that does not stop the stirring of sex desire.

     The mind says, "So what. Who cares."

     I'm still chanting Hare Krishna Mahamantra.

     But now I am asking for help. I can see the mind. I cannot blame the mind or chastise it even. It just is what it is… "very active"… It is the intelligence that has fallen asleep.

     Wake up. Wake up. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.

     YES! That is what the chanting of Hare Krishna is meant for… to awaken the spiritual intelligence. My spiritual master is here and giving me shelter. Now there are some tears of gratitude and relief. The covering of Maya is stripped away. The material world can be seen for what it is. A place of suffering where repeated birth and death take place.

     There is another world. Non-material.

     I was born in the darkness of ignorance. My spiritual master has opened my eyes with the torchlight of knowledge. I offer my most humble obeisances unto His lotus Feet.