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Diary entry: 2009 March 11, 3:55 A.M.

Assert I’m writing freer now. I woke up at 1:00 A.M, chanted eight rounds and took a nap. Prabhupada says sleep is a waste of time. The Six Goswamis cut their sleep down to one and a half hours out of twenty-four. Raghunatha dasa Goswami sometimes didn’t sleep at all. He made innumerable physical dandavats, chanted thousands of japa rounds, lived internally the life of a gopi manjari and externally a paramahamsa Vaisnava.

They were supermen. We cannot imitate them, but we shouldn’t sleep so much. Chant extra rounds.

Raghunatha dasa Goswami got his tutoring from Svarupa Damodara. He spoke for hours daily the pastimes of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and Krsnadasa Kaviraja heard from him and was inspired to write Caitanya-caritamrta. He ends each chapter with obeisances to Rupa Raghunatha.

Kaviraja was a great poet and philosopher and biographer. They were generally skinny because they didn’t eat much, and they tired themselves out with their heavy, sleepless bhajana.

Rupa Goswami is described as a bumblebee that goes after the honey of the lotus feet of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Sometimes they met together and discussed Radha-Krishna in the courtyard of the Radha Damodara temple.

Lokanatha Goswami initiated his disciple, Narottama dasa Thakura. Narottama and Syamananda and Srinivasa were the second generation of goswamis after the disappearance of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. They all were dear to Mahaprabhu. Gaura and Nityananda Rama were like the sun and moon rising simultaneously on the horizon of Nadia.

I know all these mahajanas by reading of them and thinking of them and reading their books and poems. I should dive for the honey at their lotus feet. Chanting Hare Krishna and telling people of the pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu are good ways to follow.

You chant your japa quickly and then slowly. Sometimes you get sleepy. You have heard that even negligent japa brings great benefit, so powerful is harinama. The names are more merciful than Krishna the person. They are Krishna in the form of sacred syllables. You try to vibrate them out loud, loudly, but you’re not always successful. But you always push them out. When you are not writing, you are chanting. You ask your body to cooperate, but it is slowing down and failing.

Even Haridasa Thakura began to chant fewer rounds in his old age, but Lord Caitanya told him not to worry, he was already liberated. At his prime, Haridasa chanted three hundred thousand names a day. They gave it all they had, and the Lord empowered them. Their chanting was suddha-sattva, completely transcendental with no offenses. They saw Krishna in His names. They loved to chant and never diverted their attention.

Saint Therese of Lisieux compared herself to a little sparrow who looked up to the great eagles, the saints like Teresa of Avila. I want to be like that, a little worshiping sparrow looking up admiringly at the great ones.

7:58 A.M.

We are taught to write when we are five years old. We write essays about our summer vacation: “It was nice. We went swimming at the beach.” They were not honest essays but were what we expected our teachers wanted us to say. From the beginning we fall into cliches and poses. We don’t tell about the quarreling mother and father had and how daddy ripped the screen door in a rage. We don’t say we were bored or how mom screamed when she saw a mouse come out from under the refrigerator.

“It was nice. We visited our Uncle Tim and Aunt Mary and their children at Cape Cod. We went out in a rowboat with life jackets on. We ate cotton candy on the boardwalk. On the fourth of July, we saw fireworks in the evening.” We don’t say our father forgot to put the emergency brake on the car, and it rolled down the hill and smashed into a tree. We don’t repeat the curse words he said when that happened. We don’t say why daddy says he doesn’t attend church on Sundays. We don’t say we resent mother dragging us to church or our argueing, “It daddy doesn’t go, why do we have to go?” We don’t tell how daddy killed the skunk with an axe. We don’t tell how the neighbor kids pushed over Mr. McNally’s cows for sport. We don’t tell that our older sister Maggie began bleeding and how our younger sister Kathy explained what it meant. We don’t tell that our oldest brother Frankie joined the Hare Krishnas, and mom said to him, “As long as you are with them, we don’t want anything to do with you.” She wouldn’t even let Frankie tell us about the Hare Krishnas, but he gave us a magazine and spiritual food.

No, we don’t tell those things. We say, “My summer vacation was nice. We brought a big umbrella to the beach. We went in the water with our inner tube. It was safe. They had lifeguards.”

As we grow older, we continue to give politically correct versions of reality: “I think I’ll major in computer science in college. I want to be a computer technician.” We don’t see Frankie at all. Mom won’t let him come to the house, and we don’t dare visit him at the Hare Krishna temple.

9:45 A.M.

Writing to Krishna. Running to You with my eyes closed. Praying to You with the mahamantra. Not knowing what to do for You. The best thing is to give people Krishna consciousness. That is better than food or medicine or weapons or “education.” Give them direct Krishna consciousness. There are tactics for that.

They used to do it largely by dressing as civilians and approaching people to sell them Prabhupada’s books. Dressing as devotees and going in the streets to sing the Hare Krishna mantra. Lectures in the colleges. Giving out prasadam to materially needy people. Festivals on Sunday at the temple or ratha yatras in the streets and parks.

Setting the example by running a “self-sufficient” farm, growing crops and protecting cows (never really done self-sufficiently). Bringing people to the holy dhamas of India. Teaching astanga yoga. Holding lectures, kirtanas and feasts in your home and inviting neighbors and friends.Publishing books and Back to Godhead magazine. Selling CDs, videos on the Internet; running a webpage on the Internet. Building temples. And many more tactics performed by enthusiastic preachers.

read more – part 8  >>