Teiji Sakata

Teiji Sakata, Professor Emeritus of Hindi Language at Takushoku University, was at Jai Singh Ghera yesterday for the Rasa Lila performance. Shrivatsa Goswami introduced him as the leading figure for Indological studies in Japan, who has written or edited 50 volumes about North Indian language and culture. According to Shrivatsa Maharaj, Sakata has practically single-handedly introduced the culture of North India to Japanese society.

Small in stature, he was dressed in distinctly Japanese dress, a kind of navy blue tunic that folded over like a banian with knee length shorts. Unusual for India, but perfectly suited for the weather. After giving his warmly welcomed talk in perfect though heavily accented Hindi, Prof. Sakata sat humbly in the middle of the crowd, taking occasional notes and photos, but generally absorbed in the play.

I met with the professor after the performance. Like so many scholars, despite his age (73) he is vibrant, enthusiastic and interested in everything connected with his field of study. He was recently in Delhi to present a paper from his latest edited volume in the Japanese Studies on South Asia series, The Historical Development of the Bhakti Movement in India, Theory and Practice (Manohar, 2011).

Prof. Sakata began his studies of Braj Bhasha at Benares University and came to Vrindavan in 1979 for the first time. Interestingly enough, he was introduced to Shrivatsa Goswami by John Stratton Hawley, whose book on Vrindavan Rasa Lila performances we have been quoting over the past few days.

On his return to his teaching role in Japan, Prof. Sakata was able to attract many students to the study of Hindi and by 1986 had a number of Ph.D. candidates, three of whom he brought to Vrindavan to share in the experience of the Chaurasi Kos Parikrama. He told me that he deliberately forbade any interaction between his Japanese students during the day, telling them only to mix with the other yatris so that they would improve their Hindi language skills. Then at night they were allowed to speak to each other in their own tongue.

All of these students have gone on to be professors in their own right, including Takako Tanata of Kyoto University of Education, an ethnomusicologist who has recently published her work on the Samaj Gayan Tradition of the Haridasi sampradaya of Tatia Sthan.

Actually, since my camera had become useless due to the battery dying... again... I was hoping to borrow a few of his pictures. So I showed him Vrindavan Today and he was eager to help, but we couldn't hook up his camera to my computer. Another fail. But a feeling of warm friendship passed between us. I told him a bit of what I was doing, particularly how I was interested in comparing the different versions of the Radha and Krishna story. He is also currently researching and comparing folk stories as they are told in different dialects from Braj to Bhojpuri.

Again, in humility, he said that he always felt that those who were brought up in Buddhist families in Japan and came to Indological studies (and there are many working on Buddhism) had a better intuitive understanding of India than people like himself who were secular. He said that greater insight can be had by someone who is a genuine "participant observer" than one who is simply an outsider looking in.

It was getting late and Prof. Sakata had to leave early the next day, and I also have to bicycle across town, so I had to leave with my appetite to know the professor rather unsated. But as his friendship with Shrivatsa Maharaj is well marinated -- he comes to Vrindavan at least once a year, he said, and Shrivatsa often stops over in Japan when returning to India from the American west coast -- the chances of seeing him again are good.

One thing is certain, Shrivatsa Maharaj has made Jai Singh Ghera a kind of international hub that attracts scholars and students from around the world, giving them facilities to research the Braj culture and make its delights better known throughout the world.

Lord Rama speaks to Swami Veda

I have been working a bit more intensely on the Yoga Sutra, as Swamiji will be leaving Rishikesh in a few days. He wants to have the finished, formatted edition ready by mid-May so it can be handed to Mr. Jain at Motilal. Yesterday, I worked in the library in order to have access to the original texts Swamiji has used, and afterwards had supper with him, Swami Radha and his secretaries, Swami Chetan Bharati and Medha.

From Jagat Jindagi

On offer was a heaped up bowl of freshly churned makkhan, which looked to Ma Radha like a pile of vanilla ice cream. One taste and I was thinking, "This is worth stealing!" Though I did not air this thought, the conversation did turn to Krishna and his butter stealing ways.

Swamiji took great pleasure in reciting a bit of Surdas's maiyā maiṁ nahiṁ mākhana khāyau, ("Mommy, I didn't eat the butter!") and telling of other instances of Krishna's naughtiness.

That led to the legends of Surdas,the blind bard of Braj, with a little detour into Slumdog Millionaire, where one of the poor boys with a good singing voice is deliberately blinded in order to improve his begging value. His song is perhaps Surdas's most famous: āṁkhiyāṁ tava darasane kī pyāsī ("My eyes thirst for a vision of you").

Swamiji told the story about how Krishna would always come to listen to Surdas sing without his knowledge. Then one day, being blind, Surdas fell into a well. He was calling out for someone to save him when a little boy called from above, "Grab my stick and I will pull you up."

Surdas could understand that if a little boy with a little stick could pull him out of such a deep well, then it must be none other than Krishna. So once he had climbed out with his help, he immediately grabbed the boy and said, "Now I've got you, Kanaia, you won't get away from me now!"

But once again Krishna escaped. Then Swamiji quoted the Braj Bhasha verse, "You may be able to get away from me, that is no great feat. If you can leave my heart, I will consider it a miracle!"

I had heard this story a different way. There is a Sanskrit verse attributed to Bilvamangal in the second century of Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, and I was fishing around in my memory for it. I could only come up with the first line, but Swamiji knew the whole thing:

hastam ākṣipya yāto’si

balāt kṛṣṇa kim adbhutam |

hṛdayād api niryāsi

pauruṣaṁ gaṇayāmi te ||95||

You may thrust aside my hand by force, O Krishna, what is so wonderful about that? If you can escape my heart, then I will consider that an accomplishment of some merit."

Ma Radha Bharati Swami

Of course, this was all conducted with some hilarity. Swamiji spent a year in the Arya Samaj center in Mathura in the early 40's, during which time he had occasion to hear many a kathā vācaka reciting Bhāgavata, and so he started to explain to Ma Radha how these things are conducted.

"It is all about rasa, you see. You have to understand rasa," he said. "Like Surdas sings, nisi dina barakhata naina hamāre, 'Rains are pouring from my eyes, day and night' when the gopis are separated from Krishna. Because in union there is less variety. There are so many ways to be separated!

"And one thing," he said, "is that people enjoy crying. Later, when I was in Guyana in the 1950's, I was often called on to give Rāmāyaṇa recitals. Because I was Arya Samaj, we only did Valmiki Rāmāyaṇa, no Tulasi Das... 

"Once I gave the same recital a few days apart. Exactly the same. But the first time, people cried and they came up to me and said how wonderful it was. A few days later, something was missing. Afterwards, the people came up to me and said, 'It was very good of course, but you know, we didn't cry.'"

Swamiji started reminiscing more about Guyana and Surinam, about how even after several generations they had still kept so much of their Bhojpuri culture, one of the features of which was these recitals of Rāmāyaṇa and Bhāgavata. Being an import from India, he was in great demand and had regular invitations to speak.

Swamiji went silent for a few minutes. Then he started again, "In those days, Guyana was not just underdeveloped. It was undeveloped, period. Most of the people lived on the coast, and there are many big rivers that could only be crossed by ferry. The roads... you think the roads were bad in India...

"I had made my ashram in a village some distance from Georgetown in order to provide a school for the children of the local Indian expatriates, mostly from Bihar, Bhojpuri speaking. This was in 1958. For a great part of the year, much of the countryside would be flooded, making communications even more difficult. The ashram was far enough from the beaten path that there was no mail delivery, and I would have to drive some distance to pick it up. Usually I only went once a week, sometimes less often.

"One time I had been invited to another village to give Rāmāyaṇa, so though it was a bit of a detour, I decided to go to the post office as I had not picked up my mail for more than two weeks. When I got there, I found a telegram that had been sitting in the office for at least ten days. I opened it, and saw the news that my father had died.

"You know," Swamiji said, "in my line of work, you are there to hear the problems of others. But there is not always someone you can share your feelings with. Nor was the telephone system in those days anywhere near adequate. So I could not call home all the way to Ludhiana.

"So I just went on to the other village where elaborate arrangements had been made for Rāmāyaṇa kathā. I took my shower and went and sat on the Vyāsāsana. In those days, I had the habit of just opening a book randomly when I had to lecture. And that is what I did..."

Swamiji had been speaking somewhat introspectively. Now he looked at us and said, "And what do you think? The Rāmāyaṇa opened on the very page where Bharata comes to the forest to announce the death of Dasharatha to his exiled brother! (Ayodhyākāṇḍa, chapters 96ff). And then describes Rama's grief and then his instructions and consolation to Bharata.

"I had been feeling that I had no one to talk to, and then it felt so much that Lord Rama had come personally to talk to me and comfort me in that difficult moment."

I said, "I'll bet you made the people cry that day!" Swamiji just laughed.

Good story for Hanuman's appearance day.

The sloth stirs

It really is time to get these dormant blogs shaking again. Over the past few months I have not been doing much original writing. This site was meant to be a place where I could talk about interesting people I met. And its inactivity may make it look like I haven't been meeting anyone.

Well, I have been in SRSG most of the time, and this is a slow season for visitors. Even so, I could have written about a young man who stayed for two weeks, a member of the world championship Frisbee team from Canada... Or a number of other interesting folks, some of whom I might still speak in the near future. In particular the astrologer Pawan Misra of Noida.

I had a few translation jobs that preoccupied me, and it would have been quite possible to comment publicly on that work. In fact, two different projects were directly connected with Ishopanishad, and I lectured on the Ishopanishad for a month at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama. There was definitely material that would have been of interest to my readers in that and now I am rather sorry that I did not take the trouble to publish my notes. Perhaps we can do it later. (He said with a sigh.)

One of the reasons I did not of course is that this blog has a somewhat specialized purpose, unclear as that may seem, and I would like to stick to that, rather than enter into an arcane discussion of the meaning of an ancient Upanishad. Though, since part of my work involved reading A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami's totally idiosyncratic interpretation of that work, it might have been worth looking at. Astu.

We are not out of the woods, yet, however. Currently I am working on editing Swami Veda Bharati's original first volume of the Yoga Sutra, which is a pretty solid, though somewhat formidable, piece of scholarship. Of the four padas of YS, the first seems to be the most important, and I will try to share some of the material as it becomes specifically relevant to my interests.

Activity in Vrindavan 

I am here in Vrindavan, and as I remarked the other day, I lost my computer with a sufficient amount of data lost to be worthy of lamentation. My camera also went, which is also something of a disaster as I was taking a lot of pictures, especially of Vrindavan. Luckily I posted some before it happened (Vrindavan-Mathura, August 2010).But of course much more would have already been in the camera when it parted. And it will likely be some time before I can replace it.

My principal purpose in being in Vrindavan is to get the Vrindavan Today news site working. Up until now, I have been preparing the ground as it were, but the loss of the computer was a big setback... at least of a couple of days. The basic idea of the website is this:

Vrindavan is in a bit of a crisis. The increased prosperity in the Delhi regiion, which extends as far as Agra, means a huge increase in the number of motor vehicles and traffic to Vrindavan. In one sense, it is good, as it means more wealth for the town and its people. But the materialistic approach to economic growth, if left unchecked, can be a cancer and may indeed destroy the essence of this spiritual town.

I won't go into detail here, but the flyover that was to be constructed over the Yamuna, circling around Keshi Ghat, is a perfect example of wrongheaded thinking. We are still not entirely out of the woods on that one, as the Parikrama Marg, originally the spontaneous creation of pilgrims honoring the holy dham by meditatively circumambulating it, is being turned into a ring road. But the negative impact of all these projects is not understood, either by the government or by the local residents. And those who do understand are scattered and disorganized.

In fact, it is sad to say, but the Vrindavan community of temple owners, ashrams and spiritual organizations, has literally no central institution of any kind to deal with these kinds of problems. No global forum to discuss and develop a common vision for the town and to advocate for it yet exists. The BVHA (Braja Vrindavan Heritage Alliance) is moving forward in this direction, at a snail's pace, but something IS happening. The BVHA has already had several successes, especially with Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in court regarding stopping the flyover and the cutting of trees in the road-widening activity, as well as the projected greening of Kishor Van.

At Radha Damodar temple, BVHA meeting on August 10, 2010. Nirmal Chandra Goswami to my right, Jagannath Poddar to my left.

The problems in creating such a forum are many. The main one is that most people are concerned with their own particular field of activity and cannot be stirred to projects that involve others. The concept of civic awareness is still not fully developed. There are historical reasons for this, but it is a constant battle in all societies: the forces of individual interest are always pitted against community interest, and without proper organization community interests can be easily steamrollers by the politically and financially powerful.

Another important thing is to have balance and not allow the domination of any one group. The BVHA cannot become any one person or group's show, thereby alienating other players. We have already had trouble with this issue at this stage, since we are still few and some, like Shrivatsa Goswami, Paramadvaiti Maharaj and Jagannath Poddar, have shown leadership, and each of them has his own base, interests and sphere of influence. This means proceeding with caution.

At any rate, the Vrindavan Today project has the purpose of making Vrindavan and Braj current events -- spiritual, cultural, and developmental -- available to the world on the net and creating common avenues of activism. This is another of the many ways I have been keeping busy while neglecting this site over the past several months.

Iskcon

I am staying at the Jiva Institute while in Vrindavan. Jiva is close enough to Iskcon that the magnetic attraction of that place has called me to it on a couple of occasions now. It is either the number one or number two (after Banke Bihari) attraction in Vrindavan. Now is the Jhulan season, which is one of the busiest times of the year in Braj and thousands of people go through the temple every single day.

But I have to confess that Iskcon's success is not an accident and from the looks of it has the potential to grow tremendously in the future. I do not think there is anything like it, perhaps in the entire world. There must be at least 100 young Indian men, who are committed to the brahmachari life. They follow a rather gruelling communal schedule when compared to most other ashrams--from mangal arati at 4 to breakfast at 9 before starting a regular day of seva. And these young men, though from a wide range of backgrounds, include a large number of modern, urban, educated individuals. Some very highly qualified. Certainly, the Iskcon style of kirtan and dancing etc. are something quite unique in Indian religious life. What to speak of the deity worship, which has clearly had a huge impact on modern Indian temple culture already.

Religious art is another area where Iskcon's influence has been huge, especially here in Vrindavan, where almost everyone steals Iskcon artists' work for their own billboards, books and posters.

I heard several classes at Iskcon in both English and Hindi and the quality of discourse, though entirely traditional, is at a much higher standard than it has been in the past. A wide number of authors are writing and publishing and being sold, both at the Iskcon temple and in town, indicating that the intellectual activity of the society is animated and febrile. This augurs well for the future. As Iskcon puts the structural problems of the past fully behind it, becomes increasingly self-confident, it seems inevitable that a certain degree of intellectual freedom will follow. It may be just as possible that it will follow a Roman Catholic model, but the liberal democratic background of the Western backbone of Iskcon, its lack of strong centralization, and the centrifugal forces of the guru institution will make such intellectual freedom inevitable.

Of course, in all this, it is hard not to be honest and admit that I am also an "Iskcon intellectual." I used to joke that I am to Iskcon as yogurt is to milk. It has fundamentally altered and can never go back to what it was. Nevertheless, its influence on my life is also fundamental, as much as yogurt is still milk. We could go on with the permutations and combinations of the entire Indian tradition, of which Iskcon is just another chapter, but my sources are there and my thought develops out of it. And just as Iskcon's Western influences, though not always apparent in its words, are nevertheless a major part of its ethos, its discipline and institutional force, those influences are a part of what I also bring to the evolution of Vaishnava thought.

To summarize: Iskcon is a vibrant and energetic organization. Vaishnava culture throughout India and especially in Vrindavan is benefiting from its energy. In one way of the other, it is at the center of developments in the Vaishnava world. This is a fact as much for me as it is for others, whether they like it or not.

Me

A couple of other things came out of my last couple of days of computer difficulty. One is that though a few people responded to my requests for help in finding a replacement for my lost machine, in general, the response was feeble. This is not a lament, but a recognition that the work I have done has not made much of an impression. At least, despite the nearly 5000 people who joined the Save Yamuna Save Vrndavan facebook site, only two or three saw fit to even sympathize with the situation, what to speak of offering help. Of course, several people did come forth, but let's be honest, not many.

On the other hand, I became aware of the relative notoriety of my Jagat blog. On the one hand, the Prem Prayojan Hindi newsblog and the BVHAlliance blogspot have not yet hit the radar, which is a bit of a shame, and the Gaudiya Grantha Mandir, which has been in even greater doldrums than "Jagat," is still attracting a certain number of visits and Google searches. However, "Jagat" attracts quite a few more visitors than any of them. This was something of a surprise to me.

I have never bothered to install hit counters or get analytics installed. Maybe it is time.

So, even though there is not much feedback here at the present moment, it is food for thought, in terms of where my energies should be devoted and the necessity of creating a personal website that structures the essentials of my philosophy and practice and presents it in a digestible way.

One thing B.V. Madhava, the Iskcon sannyasi who gave Bhagavatam class yesterday said that struck me was the 20-80 rule. You accomplish 80% of everything you do in 20% of the time. As you grow older, your capacities diminish, so you have to concentrate on the 20% of important stuff and cut back on the rest. Whatever the truth of that statement, it certainly is true that my time is running out. Let us say that I am in the last quarter of my life and I have not yet done, basically, anything of substance.

So let's see if the local Maharani will help out and give me the concentration and energy to do everything that [I think] she wants of me.

Radhe Radhe!

Bad News: Computer has been lost!

Dear friends,

On the way back from Vrinda Kunj, my computer was lost. Not sure how it happened, but it is something of a disaster considering that I use the computer so much for so many things. And of course, there was a lot not backed up...

The computer has become so essential to my life that it is almost like a second self, or at least a second mind or brain. A lot of services will be affected, in particular the work on the Braj Vrindavan Heritage Alliance and Prema Prayojan blogs.

So I am sending out an appeal to all those friends who over the years have enjoyed or benefited from my websites like Gaudiya Grantha Mandir, or from writings in blogs like Jagat, or from my translations, to donate for a new computer.

I am sorry I have to do this, but I am afraid I have no other resources, so I am humbly asking for your assistance.

Please write to jankbrz {at} yahoo dot com.

Thanks.

Jagadananda Das.

Surprise Visit from Karan Singh

Dr. Karan Singh is one of the most ubiquitous politicians in India. He was just recently in Vrindavan opening the Vaishno Devi temple there. Yesterday he was at Paramarth Niketan offering arati to the Ganga and today he decided to drop in on his way back to Delhi.

The ashram is pretty thin in terms of representation. If anything, that is a serious problem with the ashram itself. Swami Veda left yesterday and now, suddenly, a sannyasi from South India named Devatmananda Swami, who has been here on a visit for two days, and I are the spiritual leadership of the ashram?

The three SUV cavalcade came rolling in the requisite half an hour late. Karan Singh stepped out, wearing his trademark navy blue shirt and Congress cap. Though he has been around forever, I was a bit surprised to see him show difficulty walking, though no one had to come to his aid. On the other hand, his face seemed bright and younger than his age and his brain and speech are obviously sharp and clear.

Harshananda and a few Gurukula brahmacharis came and chanted some Vedic mantras of greeting, which Singh himself joined in chanting; he was given garland and tilak. We were prepared to show him around the ashram, but his disability prevented him and we came and sat down in the Mandala Office.

Dr. Singh gave most attention to the Swamiji, but on being told that I was the Sanskrit teacher, turned his attention to me. He asked me what I was teaching and I told him the Ishopanishad. With that, he immediately began to speak of his love for the Upanishads. He said that he felt that there are four yogas--jnana, bhakti, karma and raja. His jnana-yoga is in the Upanishads, his bhakti is for Shiva; his karma is in the various kinds of seva to which he has dedicated his life, and raja yoga, "though I am weakest in this" is what holds the others together.

"If someone exclusively practices one or the other, he may in some rare instances be able to achieve perfection, but for an ordinary person who wants to live a balanced life, all are necessary." I concurred.

And so we turned to a discussion of the Upanishads. He is a learned man who has written a translation and commentary on the Mundaka Upanishad, and a raja besides -- enough said. Because of reading and preparing a course on Ishopanishad and had formed an opinion on the question, I asked him what he though jugupsate meant in verse 6. He gave a standard answer and we quickly moved on to other things.

He correctly said that the Ishopanishad is difficult because of all the oppositional and apparently contradictory statements in verses 9-14. I asked him what he thought was meant by vidyā and avidyā, sambhüti and asambhüti, and he said parā vidyā and aparā vidyā without saying what it really meant. I wasn't quite satisfied, but we were just amusing ourselves. I took the Vaishnava position and actually quoted Bhaktivedanta Swami on his understanding of these verses.

So he turned to bhakti and chanted a nice sragdhara verse in praise of Shiva. And talked about the several temples to Nataraj Shiva he has built. I said, "One thing that Shiva and Krishna really have in common is that they both love to dance." And he said, "Only thing is, Shiva dances alone while Krishna dances with the gopis."

Then, for my benefit, he quoted this famous verse from Mukunda Mala, which he said he always uses to conclude his lecture on the Bhagavad-gita.

kṛṣṇa tvadīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam
adyaiva me viśatu mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ |
prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ
kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaraṇaṁ kutas te ||

O Krishna! Let the swan of my mind dive into the cage made by the stems of your lotus feet on this very day, for when the time comes for me to give up my life airs, my throat will be choked by the disruption of mucus, wind and bile, and then it will be impossible for me to remember you. (Mukunda Mālā, 33)

At the last moment after this group photo, I spontaneously said, "Radhe Shyam!" But then, conscious of his presence, I said, "Jai Nataraj!" and he gave me a big smile.

And off went the cavalcade.

Say Yes Now

Last night we had a farewell party for Jean White at the Raman Gardens in Tapovan. The oddly shaped buildings are clustered along the side of a steep hill just above the Ganga, with a path winding through them. I immediately thought of Paramadvaiti Maharaj and his "truly" fetish when I saw a couple of small, conically shaped huts. Most of the buildings have been constructed with the flat shale that is taken from the local ground itself, in the way that traditional village huts would have been built.

Towards the bottom of the property is a round deck with built in concrete and mosaic tile tables. This is where we sat down. We had to order in the rather comfortable coffee shop which resonated for me with long gone hippie days, but decided to eat by candlelight on the deck in the fresh evening air.

Deva Dwabha, the owner of the complex, was sitting at the next table, and Nalini rather boldly invited her to sit with us and talk to us about the Raman's Garden project, and talk to us she did.

Much information about her life and this project can be found on her website, so what follows is simply a summary of what I can remember from this conversation, in which several of us asked questions, but where Deva Dwabha kept us enthralled with her narration.

Though she has another name, Prabhavati, she introduced herself as Deva Dwabha. The name, meaning "divine chaos," was given to her by Osho, from whom she received her introduction to India and spiritual life. She spent more than 18 years with him, a lot of it at the Pune ashram, much of it traveling and teaching meditation in the Osho method around the world. After Osho left the world, she spent time traveling in India and meeting with other sadhus until she was told by one to do a year's silence in a cave by the Ganga. This was in a place not far from the current Raman's Gardens.

Her contact with the local people and the sight of their difficulties inspired her, with the help of some NGOs, to set up the orphanage and school in 1998. The need is so acute, she said, that she accepts only those children who are in imminent danger of death and have absolutely no social safety net whatsoever. Even so, the hostel now houses over 60 children. In a most matter of fact way, she told us that one of the sweet Nepali teenage girls who had served our meal had been saved from a white slave trafficking ring when she was nine years old.

Apparently a major source of financing for the Maoist rebellion in Nepal was the kidnapping and selling of young girls into India, where there is apparently an insatiable market. In particular, she told us, that the Nepali girls are in big demand in Mumbai, where thousands of wealthy Arabic tourists come every year to wait out the hot season. Deva Dwabha did not spare us her familiarity with the seamier side of Indian life.

She said that the Indian economic miracle is built on the back of what is almost slave labor. That is the dirty secret of the current building boom. In Rishikesh also, local workers are supplanted by imported labor from Bihar, which is much cheaper. The only problem is that once a project is completed, the workers are left to fend for themselves, with little work or opportunity available to them. Moreover, many of the men are sadly irresponsible with their paltry earnings, drinking and gambling it away and leaving their families destitute. All this contributes to the increasingly difficult social conditions that she sees on a daily basis. And it is not, I imagine, much different from what is going on in Vrindavan.

At the same time, every accomplishment is the result of a determined fight, and without expectation of any sympathetic help from local government or industry. Just next to the school is a new hotel of several stories, built, she says, on ashram land that was purchased illegally after bribes had arranged for corrupt bureaucrats to adjust property lines. No one should think that doing good will be rewarded by sympathetic benefactors if it conflicts with their interests.

Trying to get the students, who are all untouchable, through to higher levels of education is another great challenge. She has not been able to get permission to build a high school, despite many efforts. Part of the reason, she suspects, is that Indian society is in fact reluctant to give equal opportunities to outcaste children, as this would disrupt the kind of slave or indentured labor economy that is currently dominant.

She also lamented that students are taught to cheat and that it is even encouraged in the schools. The ashram students who have to go to public schools after finishing junior high there find themselves at a disadvantage for their honesty--and also their inability or unwillingness to pay bribes, what to speak of their caste. Nevertheless she proudly pointed to several successes, and some students from the hostel will be starting studies towards medical degrees at HIHT this year.

Since we came from Swami Rama Sadhaka Gram, she told us of her admiration and appreciation of Swami Rama, who had helped her a great deal in the beginnings of the project. She told us how she met him 16 years ago when she was first starting her own activity in Rishikesh.

A mistry named Rama got involved with some village thugs involved in alcohol and gambling and they put a stick of dynamite in his hand, blew off most of his arm, an eye, an ear. They dragged him into the forest and dumped him there to bleed to death, then went and told his wife that he had run away. She did not believe them and went into the woods looking for her husband. When she found him she had to carry him as he bled to the road four kilometers away. I am not exactly sure how Prabhavati got into the picture, but she arranged for Rama to be taken to HIHT.

Dynamite offenses are criminal in India, and hospitals cannot treat anyone unless the police are informed and a FRI has been filed. In view of this, Swami Rama was awakened. By now, Rama was in a coma and in urgent need of care. Swami Rama gave the order to proceed despite the possibility of problems from the law enforcement officials, and called the best surgeons available. The man's arm was amputated and the ear and eye were lost, but his life was saved. He still works there at Raman Gardens as a security guard.

After than, Swami Rama helped her to get the orphanage started and supported the project in many ways. She knew him from HIHT, which continues to treat the children from the orphanage and school for free, even though in many ways the policies there have changed from Swami Rama's time.

Her first question about SRSG, by the way, was "Besides yoga and meditation, what seva is done there?" Because, "Swami Rama was all about seva."

With regards to that question of seva. There is something called the andha-pangu nyaya, which means "the logic of the blind and lame men." Bhaktivedanta Swami would say the West was blind and India lame. That may be an oversimplification, but there is some truth to it, at least where we students of yoga and Indian spirituality are concerned.

The success of yoga movements in the West is because some there, despite having all facility for material enjoyment, are still looking for and indeed are in a position to seek out and devote themselves to the goals of spiritual development.

It is a cliché that you cannot preach to a hungry man without first giving him food. Even now, some parts of the rising middle class in India are beginning to show increasing signs of interest in spriituality as their material anxieties subside. But in general, material anxieties have been exacerbated by the current mad rush to prosperity, with the result that the entire moral fabric of Indian society is under great stress. And projects like Raman Gardens or Rupa Raghunath's project in Vrindavan are tremendously important in redressing the balance and creating an equitable and just society.

These are things that will actually become more and more important to us as we become free from that last stress--the stress for our individual salvation or emancipation.

The fact is that the East-West exchange is one in which there is a most vital, mutual service. If we are unable to serve seekers by providing guidance in the spiritual culture of sadhana, any other service we do will ultimately lose its connection to the sacred and then, whatever its external value, be ultimately unsatisfying and directionless.

On the other hand, spirituality divorced from service to the most needy, who are deprived of all opportunities to even remotely experience the bliss of contemplation, is a sad failure in love, the true fruit of all spiritual practice.

Radhe Radhe!

Quaroya and Heupdiakona, Rishikesh

An interesting experience today. There is a seminary of Saint Thomas Christians (Syrian Malabar Nasrani) here in Rishikesh. The name of their ashram is Samanvaya Vidya Dham which indicates a bit about their approach. You can get an idea of the purpose of this institution by scrolling down to page 74 of this document.

They invited Swami Veda and his disciples to their church near Laxman Jhula to participate in a mass which initiated 17 young men into the minor orders of the priesthood, namely lectorate and subdeaconate. These students have spent the last year in Rishikesh and they will be working in North India. Though they are all Keralans, they speak fluent English and Hindi. In fact, they all look extremely sattvik and they are trained to a very high educational level. If Hindu sannyasis were put through the same kind of training requirements that this sect puts its priests through, it would be of greatest benefit to everyone, both within Hinduism and without.


The priest who invited us, Davis Varayilan CMI, started his introductory discourse by saying that the police had visited the ashram a few days before asking about their conversion activities. There is a lot of sensitivity about that around here obviously, and they are feeling the heat. They had to explain that St.Thomas came to India in 52 AD, so their church is nothing new in this country. Most, of course, think of the Christian church in relationship to the aggressive missionary tactics used by American Protestant churches.

Fr. Varayilan said that the position of the Thomian Catholics is "Indian in culture, Christian in faith, and Oriental in its rites." But as I heard in the JNU conference last week, with the coming of the Catholics into India, especially in the 18th century, the Keralan Christians became more and more closely aligned with Roman Catholicism and the mass we saw today was a classic post-Vatican II celebration, only transposed into Hindi, with the hymns, etc., sung in North Indian bhajan style. It was a bit interesting to hear the Sanctus or Agnus Dei presented in that way, but on the whole, a very nice adaptation.


In fact, Fr. Varayilan said that the purpose of having the seminary in Rishikesh was to compensate a bit for the overly European influence and to reconnect with the Indian roots of the religion. It was meant to familiarize the seminarians with Hindu religious practices, yoga and meditation, and it was precisely for this reason that the group was invited to SRSG for a week last year, going through a meditation retreat and getting classes from Swami Veda Bharati.

On the ceiling of the church, they had six symbols of the major Indian religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism (if I got them right). This is a clear indication of the direction that an "Indian" Christianity would take, a rather more salutary approach.


Interestingly, they specifically, as Keralans, spoke of themselves as descendants of Shankaracharya.

Listening to the mass, which concluded with a rousing Jai Jagadish Hare arati, I was wondering about the relation of form to content. At any rate, it is very welcome to see a Christian group so warmly embracing Hindu-style pluralism. Indeed, when speaking of the experience at SRSG, one of the priests recited the old adage, "Religion divides and spiritualism unites."

I hesitated a moment before taking communion (parama-prasada, but showing solidarity with the cause of interfaith brotherhood, I did so. I usually felt the same kind of hesitation when at church during my son's career as a choirist, perhaps as a result of the childhood training that there was no communion without confession. You have to be in a state of grace. But left to my own subjectivity, I would never be in a state of grace, so I just went ahead.

Strange feeling. I guess that all that interfaith conferencing in Patiala had its effect.