On The Road
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
I began and completed this writing yajna today. It's a day off for us during our extremely intense schedule. Therefore please forgive any mistakes I may have made as I have no time to refine all I have written at present. Thank you.
What does it mean to become a devotee? Take the lofty example of Srila Prabhupada and see one who has put aside all personal desires to dedicate his life to simply bringing others up and out of the gutter of material consciousness. It takes a rare soul to be able to begin and maintain such a path of dedication. But by trying to serve such an exalted personality one is given a glimpse into the unique opportunity we have of doing something tangible in this extremely rare and opportune dark age of dark ages. The results of our attempts at this service are sometimes hidden in an ideological mist. They may seem very small in the eyes of one conditioned to materialistic calculation but from a spiritual perspective they are eternal and therefore immense. My realizations this past week or two have been few and far between but in order to keep this cynical English type enlivened Krsna has introduced him to a few people who's lives have changed because of meeting devotees, devotional literature, and prasadam. It's only a glimpse but…!
One example of the above came in right over the ether in the form of a couple of e-mails that Purusa Sukta Prabhu received from Heather. Heather received a 'Science of Self Realization' from Purusa at the Wyandotte Street Fair in downtown Detroit after we returned from the Cherries in Northern Michigan…
Hi. My name is Heather…I received a copy of The Science of Self-Realization on Wednesday at the Wyandotte Street Fair. I've been reading it all night and feel as though it's already helped me out with several things already. I'm very interested in learning more and was wondering how I could do so. Thank you very much for introducing this to me and for your time. Heather Rogala
Thank you very much for your reply…so quickly at that. I will most definitely be going to the program on Sunday. I still have the pamphlet you gave me so between that and your directions, I should have no trouble getting there. I'm going to see if one of my friends would like to come as well but, if she'd rather not I'll still be there. Thanks so much again for all the information you have provided me with. I look forward to learning more on Sunday.
Purusa tells me that every year after distributing books at this Fair he gets at least one similar e-mail.
Life after the Cherries: I am about to endure a whole two and a half weeks of the 'Vans Warped Tour' before hanging up my driving shades for a while. This 'Warped' tag is befitting in that it is a good description of the types of music that are hammered out at these shows. It used to take in more of the Hard-Core and Straightedge scenes but now it also embrases Punk and Ska. If you don't recognize the aforementioned music terminology please don't worry as it basically means that you turn the pre-amp and volume dials on your amp to 11 and make as much noise as possible. But a lot of the bands do have a good message and many of the folk who come by to see them are open to a more spiritual way of life. Also at the shows is a half-pipe where skateboards and bikes take their riders to the verge of serious injury. By the mercy of Atmanivedana Prabhu this tour is unique in the sense that the Hare Krishna's are legally allowed to distribute books inside at the concerts. The history book states that at a Warped show in Pittsburgh about five years ago, Atma was outside the Amphitheatre waiting for the cars to come in when Mike walks past and asks him in a nice way what he is doing. When Atma tells him, Mike likes it, and suggests that Atma distributes inside. Mike designed the tour's web pages up until a couple of years ago and knows Kevin who was and still is the Tour's Promoter. So Mike takes Atma in to the venue to introduce him to Kevin. When they find Kevin he's sitting with Civ who is a very favorable 'Hard-Core' musician and when Atma explains what he would like to do Civ lays down the immortal words; "Krishna's down!" With this approval from the heavens, Kevin conveys his openness of the idea to Atma with the official "Dig in" statement. And there you have it… from then until now devotees are given free passes to go in and distribute freely to all the concertgoers. Of course it must be added that in order to not burn out everyone this distribution has to be done in a sober, intelligent way. Over the years Kevin has received much prasadam and thankfully seems to still like the devotees.
I begin by flying from Detroit to New York City on July 14th to join Ekacakra Prabhu for three Warped shows in and around the New York area. Later I am to join with Parama Karuna (son of the famous Vaisnava Lawyer, Amarendra) and Vaikunthaloka (who also has devotee parents) Prabhus in the Gainesville van to continue from Buffalo, NY, onward and around the country. The Gainesville Vaisnavas are still phishing until July 16.
Randalls Island, NYC. July 15 One of my main reasons for coming here is to meet Kevin the Promoter and make sure that we are on for the rest of the tour. Everything works out so perfectly like Krsna had arranged the whole thing and off we go. But at least for today a short while later our enthusiasm is a little dampened as the show is cancelled due to faulty generators and lots of rain. Still, we are in the parking lot when the kids come and quickly leave so some books go to new homes. This show is rescheduled for July 24.
July 16 at Asbury Park, New Jersey. Asbury Park is like the seaside town that everyone forgot. Spooky! But the show must go on and the kids are sweet so all's well that ends well.
We are inside and by 4pm Ekacakra is at his wits end. He's tired, the music's loud and the people are passionate so he puts his bag with 30 books on ground to alleviate some of the pain. At this point one lady comes over and asks him, "Are these your books cos I wanted to but one?" Ekacakra is given new life and gives her a Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1. They talk a while and when our friend is asked if she ever comes to the city (NYC) she replies that she does all the time. Ekacakra was about to give her an invitation to the temples in NYC when our friend mentions that she thinks she already has one. The invitation emerges into her line of vision and we all hear a loud cry, "That's it. I got that in the city". She was planning to come to the temple on Thursday anyway. Take one step towards Krsna and Krsna's there…to be continued.
Ok, so same scenario. The big bag of books is on the ground. One young girl comes over and asks Ekacakra the now common, "Are these your books?" question. "Yes" comes the reply and Ekacakra shows her one. In the midst of this, two older motherly type ladies come over to where the transcendence is taking place. Any reason for a party is good enough for us so the mums get books to hold too: the reason — they were with the young lady. As Ekacakra explains the books they all become very interested. One of the mums tells Ekacakra that they are Born Again Christians but that she thinks the books look very interesting. Ekacakra changes to interfaith dialogue and describes how these books describe a Monotheistic religion teaching how to love God. The mums are endeared and each takes a book.
Saratoga Springs, NY. July 17.
We enter the parking lot in order to go find Eileen who gives us our passes for the show but one gentleman who is collecting $3 donations for parking confronts us. Ekacakra tells him that we are working here. Our friend gets a little stern and asks whom we are working for. He adds, "I'm sorry guys but I have to ask these things to make sure." I simply say that we are the Hare Krishnas to which our friend spontaneously throws up his hands, as if he has just unnecessarily held up the President of the United States of America, and says "Ok". Was I just dreaming or are things changing?
Not many motorcycles ride into these shows so when I see a big fellow from Ontario on a Harley-Davidson look-a-like it sparks my interest enough to force me to roll over and meet him. When I find out that our man works for Indian bosses doing computer games programming and has come to see the skaters and bikers do their thing on the half-pipe in order to get ideas for new games I decide to give him some more food for thought. It wasn't exactly a philosophical presentation of a book on Krsna Consciousness that I presented to him but in the future look out at your local video-game store for any new games involving Paramatma.
Inside, yelling through the wall of intense sound, I'm told, "God bless" by two or three kids. Is that rasabhasa?
Ekacakra is standing in the line of flight of one guy with sagging pants. Instead of normal brand names like "Joe Boxers", "Calvin Klein", or "Jockeys", the elastic on Saggy's underwear reads "Love all, serve all". Ekacakra stops him short and finds out that this kid and his buddies like to read about all the religions in the world. Saggy appreciates getting a Srimad Bhagavatam to put in his pants pocket and increase the sag factor.
I get a bus from Albany to Buffalo, NY, and meet up with Parama and Vaikunthaloka the day before the show on July 19th. It's sad to part with Ekacakra but good to meet with the Vaisnava youth of today. So now I'm the only ex-mleccha on the van… hmmm, humbling!
Outside the Buffalo show I meet Brian with his young daughter and niece. Many parents bring their kids to these shows and many times it's the parents that are the main influence in some transcendence coming the family way. In this case Brian convinces everyone to give and take a book each.
I'm not quite ready for this one… a Reporter for a local newspaper asks me some personal questions. When she hears that I'm from London she excitedly concludes, "If I could marry someone from London I definitely would in order to go live there!" She takes a Dharma but her boyfriend who is with her doesn't!
We stay at this show until about 8pm as we have decided to skip the next show in Boston to save gas, too much driving, and our sanity. It turns out that the show blows early enabling us to talk to some of the emerging crowd without having to yell over the speakers. It's not too bad inside if we find a quieter spot but here in Buffalo it has been loud everywhere. In the blowing process Anthony (with a "th") walks past me, stops, comes right back and literally takes a book out of my hand asking how much it is? This happens a few times today. Interesting to note that there is still a big interest in the East amongst many of these Western types.
I am fruitive! No doubt about it! Therefore my prayer is that Sri Krsna deals with my out-in-left-field attitude later but still allows the job in hand of distributing His books to continue through me. That's the best I can give. Normally I never approach people who are either talking on or with someone talking on a cell phone. It's just too weird and can make the persons rightfully annoyed. But this time, due to a fruitive mentality, I call over Linda while her friend Glen is having an anxious conversation over his mobile. When Glen closes up the contraption I appologise to him for interrupting his conversation but he tells me it's ok because something really bad has just happened. I tell him that that's part of the nature of this crazy world we live in. He heartily agrees. When I show both of them books, Linda sees the Light of the Bhagavata and asks if it's the Bhagavad Gita. In our walk back to the van to fulfill her desire to add Sri Krsna's Words of Wisdom to her library we groove on karma and ayurveda. People appreciate the Devanagari, transliterations, etc, in these books. It makes the books so authoritative that they are very impressed. This was also the case for Lynda.
A group of five girls come out of the concert. When Parama approaches them and explains what he is doing they all become very interested and ask many strange questions. So they are asking poor old Parama about whether he has sex or not, etc, etc. By the way, why is it that people ask monks what they would not normally dare ask any other person? Parama eventually gets back on the path of perfection and gets to the point… "Please take the books and give donations." One of the ladies feels bad that she hasn't any money to give so she comes up with a cunning plan. She will help Parama distribute the books! She takes some of Srila Prahupada's books in hand and off she goes. After approaching a first group and failing to get the message across she tells Parama that this is a lot harder than she thought so in the mood of a seasoned book distributor she changes tactics in mid-stream in order to get the upper hand. "These books will give you good karma so in your next life it will help you get a lot of girls." The gentlemen who receive this new benediction begin frantically diving into their pockets looking for cash but can only muster up a few coins. In the mean time one of our maharati's friends has found five dollars and is offering it up in sacrifice to Parama for the good karma the books will bring. Parama tells her to definitely share the book with Maharati dasi as it will confirm her good intentions and maybe apply a little fine-tuning to her understanding.
"I've been looking for you for so long!" Vaikuntha is wondering why the lady who has just approached him has been searching for him. He gets it when she adds;" My friend has these books". She now has one too.
July 22. Barrie, Ontario is about an hour north of Toronto in Canada.
Amidst the many Canadians who receive books at this show, by far the most interesting incident for me is when Parama meets one tattoo artist who had bought a Krsna Art Book from Savyasaci a while ago. This book enthused one guy in our friend's store to pay $1,000 for Jadurani's Nrsimhadeva to be engraved on his back for this lifetime. Krsna gives back minimum ten times what you give him. I should add that our tattoo man has also added some philosophy to his library now. Hopefully his knowledge will increase too.
On July 23 we blast over to Detroit. Am I going round in circles? The show here bears some nice fruit including the Cherries that Vaikuntha is now addicted to.
Mother's day.
Mum 1
Parama approaches a young couple sitting on a log. He shows them books and the girl proclaims, "Oh, I know those books. My mum has one." When Parama asks which one she has our friend yells over her shoulder, "Hey mum, which one of these books do you have." Mum, who was sitting a little way away with her young boyfriend, pulls her book out and displays it for the world to see. Our young friend appreciates the whole situation and happily takes another for herself too.
Mum 2
I approach another mum. She looks a little out of place as she is wearing a tie-dye T-shirt at a gathering of punks, but everyone appreciates the effort. I show her the 'Light of the Bhagavat' and when she opens to the inside cover and sees a large picture of Srila Prabhupada she begins to recollect. She starts by describing a motorcar baron who built a mansion in Detroit and when I mentioned that the Fisher Mansion is our temple she tells me that she has been there and seen the wax figure of this man in the book there. She almost bumped into him and apologized before realizing that Srila Prabhupada was in his murti form. She happily took the 'Light'.
Mum 3
A mum and daughter come over to Parama and ask about the books. They have worked in helping to set up the stages and stuff this morning so that they could get in for free. They were very interested in the Srimad Bhagavatam and so used some of what they saved by their hard work for the Amala Purana.
"Obosan…. ahhh…. kifu…. ahhh…. arigato." By Krsna's Grace I connected with this hip Japanese Couple. It had to be with a 'Light of the Bhagavata'.
While wandering around the stages I receive a patch with "Gutter Punx" written on it. Then I gets a flier advertising when and where the Gutter Punx are playing. Finally the progression leads me to Eric who is the drummer of the Gutter Punx. It's like a trail I journeyed on and at the end there's Eric with his bald head and goatee holding on to his newly acquired 'Journey of Self Discovery'. The royal road from the gutter to Krsna Consciousness.
Vaikuntha is showing a girl a book and he tells her it explains karma, reincarnation, life after death, and so on. She's not so interested. Vaikuntha cuts it short; "Everyone's giving a donation". "Ok, I'll take one" she surprisingly says. "I want you to know that I'm a Born Again Christian and that the only reason I'm taking this book is so that whenever I get in an argument I know what I'm talking about and can defeat you." Finally, an intelligent Christian.
108 and Shelter have done a fair amount of preaching to these kids. For example, Parama meets one Americanized Indian who is coming from a Jain background. Our Jain friend asks if the book that landed in his hands has something to do with the band 108. "Yes". Parama explains that 108 and Shelter get their knowledge from these books. Mr. Jain heard something particularly mentioned about the Srimad Bhagavatam on a 108 video. So Canto 1 is now in his possession (or visa-versa).
Between the evening of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th we are blasting between Detroit and NYC. For those of you who don't know the distance, it's around 600 miles. Somehow or other we make it to Randalls Island for the rescheduled show at about 10:30am to meet with Ekacakra, Vijaya and Bhava Sindhu. Ekacakra has baked some molasses and ginger cookies that go down extremely well with the production crew!
In one of the parking lots Vaikuntha sees a car with a bumper sticker that reads, "Kill your TV". Thinking that the proprietor of such a sticker would very likely be open to reading good literature, Vaikuntha makes his presence known and is happy to find one young gentleman who had received a Bhagavad Gita last year. Our friend has read it and liked it. Not only that but he also learned to offer his food to God from that book. He explained that he is now at a crossroads in his life. He took another book and is going to visit 26 Second Avenue where Srila Prabhupada originally was at the crossroads of American history.
Inside I put my bag down as I carry a good amount of books so that I don't have to make the long trek back to the van too often. At one point I've got carried away and have wandered about 20 feet away from it when Mike and Joe walk past, notice it, and begin rummaging through it. Both the boys are from New York so when I come over they are not at all embarrassed that it's my bag they are looking through. In fact they just keep right on shuffling through all the wonders in the bag. They are so attracted that they take one each.
We meet so many favorable people at these shows, like Joe who is working a booth for Sessions Records. He comes up to me and asks me if I'm a devotee. He's been looking for kuntimala for ages and so at the next show I hook him up. When I explain that the one he's attracted to is sandalwood he puts it down in favor of Srimati Tulasidevi.
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