Journey Home - An Amazing adventure of finding the Divine

Every now and then a book is released which becomes a spiritual classic–a book that brings people in touch with a distant world, opens minds to new possibilities and becomes standard reading for spiritual seekers. Autobiography of a Yogi and Be Here Now come to mind. With the release of The Journey Home – Autobiography of an American Swami, I believe Radhanath Swami has given the world a new spiritual classic, one destined to both fascinate minds and touch the hearts of thousands. In recent memory, most presentations of bhakti that have arisen in the mainstream have been done by those not thoroughly seasoned in the practice itself. For instance, Deepa Mehta’s film Water and Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love both have something interesting to offer, but neither can provide the appreciation of an insider. Therefore, I’m particularly delighted to see a presentation of bhakti-yoga enter the mainstream from a such a worthy practitioner.

The author, Radhanath Swami

The Journey Home is a spiritual memoir—the real-life, autobiographical account of an exceptional countercultural youth who leaves America in search of himself. Trying desperately to access the continent within, he sets out first for Europe, visiting cathedrals, holy places, and hippie hotspots. With little more than a seeker’s heart and a blues harmonica, he leaves few avenues unexamined, as his overland journey takes him through the Middle East and beyond. Western religious ideals and the models who exemplify them are his first natural guideposts and ports of call. He is open, nonsectarian and, most of all, earnest.

Ultimately, he arrives in India by the end of 1970, where he finds himself living the life of a wandering sadhu, a mendicant, with little money and fewer resources. His travels lead him in many directions, both geographically and philosophically, and the reader watches him age with the wisdom of centuries. In a few months, his young world is augmented by experience and realization. We accompany him into a magical land of yoga, meditation, and soul-stirring revelations. At various points in his journey, he meets deformed lepers and frightening Naga Babas, contemplative Buddhists and mystic yogis—even old friends from the West and angelic devotees.

Through the author’s personal encounters, the reader is introduced to many of the prominent yogis, monks, and gurus of the era—Swami Shivananda, Swami Rama, Swami Satchidananda, Swami Chidananda, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Ananda Mayi Ma, Neem Karoli Baba, Muktananda, even the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa—either directly or through their legends and teachings. We meet many nameless luminaries as well, and those whose names, if not for Radhanath Swami, we would have never heard. Our blossoming seeker meditates under the original Bodhi Tree—the Buddha himself meditated and achieved enlightenment here!—and studies with masters and saints.

Each experience inches him closer to his goal. We witness, with him, the burning of dead bodies in Benares and fascinating pilgrimages to ancient cities (and inner worlds) where life takes on new meaning, high in the Himalayas, Tibet, and in holylands innumerable. He lives in caves, deep in forests, under trees, and moves throughout the subcontinent with a thirst for “the truth” that is rarely seen—anywhere.

The book is replete with touching, heartwarming (and sometimes heart-rending) episodes—like when he rejects the advances of a beautiful woman for the sake of his quest, or when he feelingly and with tears bids his harp goodbye, throwing it, once and for all, in the River Ganges, or when he meets his eternal guru. All such scenes are recreated for the reader with deep emotion and storytelling expertise. Both descriptive writing and perceptive analysis are plentiful in this book, making it a precious gem that will enrich the reader with its shining brilliance.

The meeting with his eternal guru is, in many ways, the pivotal episode in the book. It was on this momentous occasion that all he had learned would suddenly gel for him. The Indian print of Lord Krishna our young seeker had carried with him for numerous months, uncontrollably attracted to it, now had personality, definition—it was the Supreme Lord as evoked in the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra. This sacred chant, too, was something he had carried around for many moons, having mystically received it through the grace of the Ganges River. But now, by his guru’s grace, he was able to connect the form with the mantra, the Godhead with His spiritual sound vibration. It all came together, like the three rivers—the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the Sarasvati—in Prayaga. Still, his quest continued, even after meeting his master, just so he could be sure that he had left no stones unturned.

But it was in his master’s eyes that he found his way home. This is where he discovered the true depth of the Ganges and the ultimate meaning of the Himalayan masters; the value of lineage holders and the wisdom of the Vedas; the secrets of mysticism and the heart of devotion. His master’s very being spoke of purpose, mission, and unending love. Home, too, was in Vrindavan, Lord Krishna’s holy playground, which embodied his master’s essence.

Throughout this work, we find the author’s culminating realizations, as well as correspondence written to family from distant lands, set apart from the rest of the text, both with italics and with inset block quotes. These are often pithy and rich, thought-provoking and even profound. In fact, the block quotes, along with the book’s picture sections, showing the author as a youth, with family and friends—so one can visualize the main players in his life—and with spiritual “celebrities,” such as the Dalai Lama and others, add immeasurably to the book’s overall effect.

After trekking for months through hostile lands, often barely escaping with his life, he approaches the threshold of an eternal and magical realm where, realizing that he has at last reached the precipice of his spiritual goals, of Bhakti, or devotional mysticism, he makes the astonishing and almost anticlimactic decision to leave. He returns back to the world from which he came in order to share what he has learned.

It is an extraordinary choice, given what he survived to get there: a journey filled with bizarre and often dangerous characters; mystical, life-altering experiences; treacherous encounters that left permanent marks on him and on those around him. The narrative of that journey unfolds as an engaging tale, a love story, and an education in spiritual reality in all its forms. We are with him through solitude; when he stumbles upon saintly and accomplished teachers; and as he experiences moments of splendor and enlightenment. The fact that he graphically and effectively conveys all this is quite an achievement for a first-time author.

The act of turning back, of potentially denying one’s own salvation so that the world may benefit, holds a revered place in most wisdom cultures. Bodhisattvas, the “enlightened beings” of Buddhism, are motivated by such a wish and forego their own entrance into nirvana, the state of enlightenment, in order to work for the progress of society. In the Jewish faith, the tzaddikim or “righteous” men and women (tzidkanit) are great souls who strive to uplift the oppressed and establish justice. The history of Christianity bears testimony to the price paid by Christian mystics, apostles and martyrs who served as conduits for the spirit of God in the world. And in India the title sadhu is awarded to learned spiritualists who embody the holy life and serve as teachers and guides.

Not all sadhus risk their spiritual attainment to help others.

In traditional India, there are basically two types of sadhus. One type is called bhajananandi. These are sadhus who shun society and live in forests or caves, where they devote all their days to intense penance, rigid study, and sing bhajans, sacred hymns. They remain aloof from money matters, their diet is austere, and for most seekers of enlightenment their path is impossible to follow. The other sadhus are known as goshtananandi. These sadhus travel to populated cities to give everyone a chance to hear about God and the principles of a holy life. Their path requires them to confront one of the greatest challenges of the divine call, namely how to live a holy life in utterly unholy surroundings. They show it is possible to remain egoless in an ego-driven environment. Simply put, their teaching is as follows: how to be both in the world and yet not of it.

According to a brief Author’s Note at the back of his book, Radhanath Swami emerged from his years of travel wanting to explain for others the beauty and mystery of what he had discovered, and therein lay a dilemma. Judging by this very intimate account, he is a shy soul who finds it uncomfortable when a spotlight is focused on him. Writing an autobiography was just not his style, but he undertook the exercise in response to appeals made by a number of his admirers. One friend in particular, Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005), was an African-American guru who had risen from an impoverished childhood to become a Princeton graduate, civil rights activist, High Chief in the Warri kingdom of Nigeria, and a spiritual leader with students on five continents. He was also one of the few people in the world who knew the full scope of Radhanath’s odyssey. In 2005 as Bhakti Tirtha Swami lay dying from cancer, he made a request. He asked Radhanath to set aside his reservations and write the story of his journey to God. At first Radhanath refused, saying that writing about his own life would be “sheer arrogance.”

“Don’t be miserly,” Bhakti Tirtha told him. “Share what has been given to you.” He passed away two days later.

In some ways, Radhanath Swami’s hesitation over coming back into the world after his discovery of Bhakti was justified. After all, having gone through the numerous experiences related in this book, his was now the peaceful and fulfilling life of an accomplished recluse; why take backsteps into the drudgery of material life? Associating with those focused on sense gratification, he knew, would engender the worst of risks. But his ultimate choice, in terms of path and teacher, tells the story. At this point, we can let the name be known: By selecting Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), a pure devotee—an activist, who lived only to help others—as his guru (after declining offers of initiation from several yogis and other adepts in the Himalayas and elsewhere), Radhanath Swami cast his fate to the wind, cut his matted locks, and bought a ticket back to America. More than a symbolic gesture of moving away from the mindset of physically renouncing the world, these were first steps toward an “engaged” form of devotion. This contemporary strain of the Bhakti tradition maintains that people who are aware of their spiritual identity must help to reduce suffering in the world around them. They must share what they’ve been given.

Every recent generation has had its best selling mystic guidebook, often focusing on the life of an exemplary seeker. The 1940s gave us works on the lives of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda as well as Paramahansa Yogananda’s now classic Autobiography of a Yogi. Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain, detailing the Trappist monk’s quest and accomplishment, came soon after that. The following decades produced a slew of mystic accounts, prominent among them are Carlos Castaneda’s series on Yaqui shaman Don Juan Matus and the cult classic Miracle of Love: Stories About Neem Karoli Baba. The Ochre Robe, an autobiography written by Agehananda Bharati, dominated the genre in the ‘80s, but there were others.

These first autobiographical books, as listed above, focused on Shaktas or the neo-Hinduism associated with Advaita Vedanta, or on yogis, as in the case of Yogananda. For a Christian hagiography, Merton was decidedly more modern in his approach.

Biographical tales of Yaqui shaman mysticism and of Neem Karoli Baba, both, were tinged by the psychedelic mode of the ‘60s and by generic Hinduism. Agehananda was a Dasanami sannyasi, following the philosophical conclusions of Shankara.

The next generation belongs to The Journey Home. Like its predecessors, it offers readers an intimate look into a true seeker’s life, and into the tradition he ultimately chose to follow. But what is unique here is that the tradition of choice is Vaishnavism. The books mentioned above, and so many others like them, invariably sidestep the Vaishnava tradition. There may, of course, be many reasons for this: Those focusing on Western spirituality need not look at the Vaishnava sages and their theological background at all. It simply doesn’t figure into their survey. But the Eastern texts are another story. With Vaishnavism accounting for the vast majority of “Hindu” practitioners in the world today—a statistic that was initially brought to light by Agehananda Bharati himself—its omission in the pages of the world’s spiritual biographies is inexcusable.

That being said, the time has finally come for Vaishnavism to be given its due, and there is hardly a more worthy representative than Radhanath Swami. Indeed, he has learned from and appreciated every single religious leader and tradition that has crossed his path. He views reality in an unabashedly pluralistic way, never discounting the value and merits of any genuine form of esoteric spirituality. He is nonjudgmental in the best, most enlightened way—as a Saragrahi Vaishnava, one who looks to the essence, seeing all religion as just so many roads to the same goal, which is, of course, God. This makes him a superlative Vaishnava, indeed. Thus, The Journey Home stands tall in the long line of spiritual classics mentioned above—and it richly deserves to be there. It, too, has found a home.

Steven Rosen (Satyaraja Dasa) is an initiated disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He is also founding editor of the Journal of Vaishnava Studies and associate editor for Back to Godhead. He has published twenty-one books in numerous languages, including the recent Essential Hinduism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) and the Yoga of Kirtan: Conversations on the Sacred Art of Chanting (FOLK Books, 2008).

Spiritual practioners performing kirtan in a group

Kirtan is a form of devotional chanting. Its roots go back over 500 years to India. It is a form of Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion, and has the power to open the heart. The singing is accompanied by musical instruments and rhythmic drumming. The audience is encouraged to participate by chanting, clapping and even dancing. It is hard to resist the urge to join in! In its heartfelt expression, kirtan can induce profound states of meditation, bliss, and ecstasy.

There is a sweet sound vibration that penetrates through all layers of coverings and makes God dance. That sound vibration is kirtan. It is a mysterious connection that draws people to each other.

Kirtan is a boon and blessing that can awaken the perfection of one’s life and carry one over the ocean of miseries that are abundant in the material realm, the realm that is filled with tings that we cannot understand. There are wars and disease, death and people in constant anxiety. Kirtan transports the soul out of there.

Without kirtan life is empty, meaningless, devoid of anything substantial. It is our best friend, shelter, and the nectarian water to quench our soul’s eternal thirst. You got to give it a shot!

Retrace your steps through the ages and arrive at a time when the waters are fresh, the air is pure, the people are peaceful, and the earth is bountifully green. Tread the soft dirt path into the village, past gently roaming cows, through clean courtyards of smooth-walled huts. Enter the Vedic Age.

A crackling fire is fueled by butter and sesame, encircled by the fair, noble population. In unison, they punctuate the air with exacting rhythms of vibrantly precise sound. They are chanting the Hare Krishna mantra.

In the ancient language of Sanskrit, man means “mind” and tra means “to free.” So a mantra is sound that has the power to liberate our mind from conditioning and illusion. Sound is the most powerful force in the world. Go to any concert for proof. Sound brings hundreds of thousands of people together and makes them dance and jump and scream. Sound can change nations. Sound is power.

From that remote village up to today, the Hare Krishna movement has been based on music and sound. The power of Krishna conscious sound can completely emancipate anyone and everyone from the shackles of mundane existence and give direct experience of sublime spiritual pleasure.

George Harrison chanting the Hare Krishna mantra on prayer beads

Material sounds nail you down deeper and deeper into the material world. Talk about the rich and famous. Sing about the sleek and sexy. Poison the brain with sounds about people’s bodies, and how they exploit the world for the gratification of those bodies.

Spiritual sounds break you out of the rut and return you to your original spiritual consciousness. Talk and sing about the true self—that is spiritual sound. The most powerful of all such sounds is that which focuses on the most powerful of all selves—the Supreme Self, Krishna.

There are no rigid rules or restrictions. Anyone can take advantage of this mantra meditation thing, no strings attached. This sound vibrates directly from the spiritual platform and is heard by the inner ear of the soul. When heard or sung with attentiveness and sincerity, the mantra begins to wipe the dust from the mirror of your heart, until you can finally see yourself again—and Krishna.

It works. You might as well see for yourself.

Doubt: Chanting…..Isn’t that brainwashing?

Answer:Don’t fall for that scare tactic. Of course it’s brainwashing. So what? So is everything else. Everything that goes into your brain is going to wash or stain it in some way.

If my clothes are dirty, they should be washed. Chanting the mantra will wash away the dark stain of materialism and selfishness that’s been so deeply ingrained in our minds by years of social indoctrination.

Doubt: That’s just because there’s a whole elaborate philosophy behind the chanting. People can convince themselves that they like chanting and that it’s helping them in all these different ways. If you had that kind of philosophy behind chanting Coca Cola, it would work just as good.

Answer: OK, prove it. Write up a line and psyche us up to chant it over and over again, for hours on end, every day, over thousands of years—so that we feel happier and more fulfilled the more we chant. If you just take a sound, put some philosophy behind it, and have it be as successful as Hare Krishna, I’d like to see somebody do it.

Musicians are constantly trying to do just that, to write a song that people will want to listen to over and over again, deriving fresh inspiration every time. They all fail. Their songs fall off the charts.

Why are the mantras (such simple jingles) the only ones to ever succeed? There’s clearly something unique about them which sets them apart from mundane sounds. “Hare Krishna” is a spiritual vibration, not a mind hype.

HOW TO

Maha means “great”

Mantra means “sound that frees the mind from ignorance”

The Hare Krishna maha mantra goes like this:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

(Pronunciation: Hare is pronounced rhymes like huh-ray, Rama is pronounced rhyming with raa-maa)

You can chant the maha mantra anywhere and at any time, but it is best to set a specific time of the day to regularly chant. Early morning hours are ideal.

The chanting can be done in two ways: singing the mantra, called kirtana (usually done in a group), and saying or reciting the mantra to oneself, called japa (which literally means “to speak softly”). Concentrate on hearing the sound of the mantra. As you chant, pronounce the mantra clearly and distinctly, in a prayerful mood. When your mind wanders, bring it back to the transcendental sound.

One way to chant is to say the mantra softly on prayer beads.

It is good to chant on japa beads. This not only helps you fix your attention on the mantra, but it also helps you count the number of times you chant the mantra daily. Each strand of japa beads contains 108 small beads and one large bead, the head bead. Begin on a bead next to the head bead and gently roll it between the thumb and middle finger of your right hand as you chant the full Hare Krishna mantra. Then move to the next bead and repeat the process.

In this way, chant on each of the 108 beads until you reach the head bead again. This is one round of japa. Then, without chanting on the head bead, reverse the beads and start your second round on the last bead you chanted on.

Initiated practitioners chant at least sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra daily. But even if you can chant only one round a day, a good principle is that once you commit yourself to chanting that round, try to complete it every day. When you feel you can chant more, then increase the minimum number of rounds you chant each day—but try not to fall below that number. You can chant more than your fixed number, but do your best to maintain a set minimum each day.

The japa beads are considered sacred, and it is therefore recommended to keep them in a clean place. To keep your beads clean, it’s best to carry them in a special bead bag. (available from the temple store)

Philosophy

By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Srila Prabhupada Explains the meaning of the Hare Krishna mantra

This transcendental vibration of chanting

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

is the sublime method of reviving our Krishna consciousness. As living spiritual souls, we are all originally Krishna conscious entities, but due to our association with matter since time immemorial, our consciousness is now polluted by the material atmosphere.

In this polluted concept of life, we are trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but actually we are becoming more and more entangled in her complexities. This illusion is called maya — or hard struggle for existence for winning over the stringent laws of material nature.

This illusory struggle against material nature can at once be stopped by the revival of our Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the mind. It is the original energy of the living entity. When we hear the transcendental vibration, this consciousness is revived.

By practical experience, also, we can perceive that by chanting this maha-­mantra, or “the great chanting for deliverance,” one can at once feel transcendental ecstasy from the spiritual stratum. When one is actually on the plane of spiritual understanding, surpassing the stages of sense, mind, and intelligence, one is situated on the transcendental plane.

This chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare is directly enacted from the spiritual platform, surpassing all lower stages of consciousness, namely sensual, mental, and intellectual. There is no need to understand the language of the mantra, nor is there any need of mental speculation, nor any intellectual adjustment for chanting this maha-mantra. It springs automatically from the spiritual platform, and as such anyone can take part in this transcendental sound vibration without any previous qualification and feel the ecstasy. We have seen it practically—even a child can take part in the chanting.

The word Hara is a form of addressing God’s energy. Krishna and Rama mean “the highest pleasure.” Hara is Krishna’s supreme pleasure potency. This potency, addressed as Hare, helps us in reaching Krishna.

The material energy, known as maya, is also one of God’s multipotencies. The living entities are described as an energy that is superior to matter. When the superior energy is in contact with inferior energy, it becomes an incompatible situation. But when the marginal potency is in contact with the supreme spiritual potency, Hara, it becomes the happy, normal condition of the living entity.

The three words Hare, Krishna, and Rama are the transcendental seeds of the maha-mantra, and the chanting is the spiritual call for God and His internal energy, Hara, for giving protection to the soul. The chanting is exactly like the genuine crying by a child for his mother. Mother Hara helps in achieving the grace of the supreme father—Hari, or Krishna—who reveals Himself to such a sincere devotee.

Prayer Beads

This image’s sarcastic title is “Consumerism Will Free This World.” The culture of consumerism is busy freeing us from nature by destroying it. The World Wildlife Fund, a global conservation organization, revealed in its “Living Planet Report” for the year 2006 that, according to current projections, humanity will be using two planets’ worth of natural resources by 2050 — if those resources have not run out by then. The question is, what is capable of checking the runaway material desires and attachments of the current world’s population? For the answer, read the last section of this article, entitled “SPIRITUAL ECONOMICS.”

The modern economic system, being driven by materialistic incentives and measured by production and consumption, is deliberately designed by vested interests to create insatiable desires. Obviously, the more people buy, the more money is made by the sellers. When these sellers are primarily motivated by short-term profit, which is the case today, the overall effect on society is negative. This is well known in academic circles. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute wrote: “Our global civilization today is on an economic path that is environmentally unsustainable, a path that is leading us toward economic decline and collapse.” Robert Lane noted in his book Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies that many people in advanced market democracies throughout the world are haunted by the specter of unhappiness and depression. Does affluence + choice = well-being? Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, noted that affluence is on the rise but happiness is declining, an effect he calls the “Affluence-Happiness Paradox.” We are paying a high price for materialism: higher anxiety, depression, drug & alcohol use (not to mention abuse); lower self-actualization, vitality, and satisfaction.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky of Princeton University have pointed out another interesting paradox: increased choice among ma­terial objects leads to decreased happiness. This is because choosing one option means foregoing others: the wider the range of choice, the deeper the sense of loss. Losses make us hurt more than gains make us feel good. We should also keep in mind the phenomenon of adaptation: the joy of possessing an item declines with time. People consistently misestimate how long good experiences will make them feel good and how long bad experiences will make them feel bad, according to studies by Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University and Timothy D. Wilson of the University of Virginia. The greater the expectation, the greater the frustration is about a poor choice. Barry Schwartz wrote in his revolutionary book The Tyranny of Choice: “With group after group of people, varying in age (including young adolescents), gender, educational level, geographic location, race and socioeconomic status, we have found a strong correlation between maximizing and measures of depression.” Ed Diener and Martin Seligman noted in their book Beyond Money: “In stark contrast to the improvement in economic statistics over the past 50 years, there is strong evidence that the incidence of depression has increased enormously over the same time period. This is a very revealing paradox.” Barry Schwartz said that a point is reached at which an increased range of choice brings increased misery rather than increased opportunity. It seems that American society has already passed that point. According to a study at Columbia University: “Evidence is mounting that subjective and, in several cases, even objective well-being may be negatively affected by choice proliferation; policy makers should consider when and how much choice to give in various public realms.”

Are We Raping Our Planet?

Our Planet is on Fire

According to the Worldwatch Institute, 33% of the planet’s natural resources have been consumed in the last 30 years, 25% of the fifty recent wars and armed conflicts have involved a struggle for control of natural resources, 4% of the US’ original forests are left, 80% of the planet’s original forests are gone, 40% of US rivers are undrinkable, 30% of the kids in parts of the Congo now have had to drop out of school to mine coltan (used in electronics), globally 200,000 people a day move into cities to live in slums and work in toxic industries that release 4 billion lbs of toxins a year (breast milk contains the highest levels of many toxins), 40% of ocean areas are strongly polluted and only 4% remain pristine. Dr. Halpern wrote in the prestigious Science Magazine (February 15, 2008) “I study this stuff all the time and didn’t expect the impacts to be as pervasive as we found.” Hawken and coworkers revealed in Natural Capitalism: “There is no longer any serious scientific dispute that the decline in every living system in the world has reached an extraordinary threshold.” According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), there are 1.2 million fatalities on the job each year (3,300 deaths per day), and 160 million new cases of work-related diseases. The Worldwatch Institute also reported that in 1960 the Gross Domestic Product (the total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year) of the 20 richest countries was 18 times greater than that of the 20 poorest countries. By 1995, the gap between the richest and poorest nations had more than doubled to 37 times.

The timebomb of global warming is ticking away

The World Wildlife Fund, a global conservation organization, revealed in their Living Planet Report for the year 2006 that, according to current projections, humanity will be using two planets’ worth of natural resources by 2050 — if those resources have not run out by then. It also confirms the trend of biodiversity loss seen in previous Living Planet Reports. Already resources are depleting, with the report showing that vertebrate species populations have declined by about one-third in the 33 years from 1970 to 2003. At the same time, humanity’s ecological footprint —the demand people place upon the natural world—has increased to the point where the earth is unable to keep up in the struggle to regenerate. “We are in serious ecological overshoot, consuming resources faster than the earth can replace them,” said WWF’s international director James Leape. He added: “The consequences of this are predictable and dire. It is time to make some vital choices. Change that improves living standards while reducing our impact on the natural world will not be easy. The cities, power plants and homes we build today will either lock society into damaging over-consumption beyond our lifetimes, or begin to propel this and future generations towards sustainable living.” The Living Planet Report uses various data to compile two indicators of the earth’s well-being. The first, the Living Planet Index, measures biodiversity, based on trends in more than 3,600 populations of 1,300 vertebrate species around the world. In all, data for 695 terrestrial, 344 freshwater and 274 marine species were analyzed. Terrestrial species declined by 31 per cent, freshwater species by 28%, and marine species by 27%. The second index, the Ecological Footprint, measures humanity’s demand on the biosphere. Humanity’s footprint has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003. This report shows that our footprint exceeded biocapacity by 25% in 2003. The carbon dioxide footprint, from the use of fossil fuels, was the fastest growing component of our global footprint, increasing more than ninefold from 1961 to 2003. Countries of over a million people with the largest footprint, in global hectares per person, are the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, Finland, Canada, Kuwait, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, New Zealand and Norway. China comes mid-way in world rankings, at number 69, but its growing economy and rapid development mean it has a key role in keeping the world on the path to sustainability. New, more comprehensive methodology identifies overfishing, industrial agriculture, urban sprawl and carbon emissions as the chief culprits driving ecological overshoot.

Consumerism will getcha!

WWF’s conclusions are confirmed by another group called Redefining Progress, who found that humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds the earth’s biological capacity by nearly 40%, as revealed in their Footprint of Nations report. The ecological footprint—a concept refined over the past decade by Redefining Progress—is a measure of the amount of nature it takes to sustain a given population over the course of a year. By comparing a population’s footprint with its biological capacity, ecological footprint analysis suggests whether or not that population is living within its ecological means. If a population’s footprint exceeds its biological capacity, that population is said to be engaging in unsustainable ecological overshoot. According to the new Footprint of Nations report, humanity’s footprint is 57 acres per person while the earth’s biological capacity is just 41. “The ecological footprint is becoming an increasingly accurate tool for monitoring humanity’s impact on our planet’s vital life support systems. Our new results should heighten concern about ecological overshoot, and our new tools give the whole world the ability to understand and then to act,” said Michel Gelobter, Executive Director of Redefining Progress. RP’s new ecological footprint analysis underscores the need to act soon to curb a runaway greenhouse effect, an extinction rate approaching nearly 1,000 times the natural rate, and degradation of farmland, forests, fisheries, and pastures. The good news is that the largest single threat, climate change, is now being addressed by the Kyoto Protocol. The ecological footprint highlights the need to make even deeper cuts in our consumption of fossil-fuel-based energy and increase the speed of the transition to widespread renewable energy. The latest Footprint of Nations report is available online at www.ecologicalfootprint.org.

Victor Lebow said: “Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . [W]e need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” Gary Cross wrote in An All-Consuming Century: “The real winner of the century was consumerism. Visions of a political community of stable, shared values and active citizenship have given way to a dynamic but seemingly passive society of consumption in America, and increasingly across the globe.” The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of the world’s resources and creates 30% of the world’s waste. The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as 50 years ago. If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets!

In summary, materialistic economics is based on exploitation, encourages unlimited consumption, is unsustainable, is divisive, focuses on individual material welfare, forces people to give up higher needs, thrives on lower materialistic tastes, leads to animalistic dealings and relationships, is harmful to oneself and other people, and produces irreversible damage to nature and biodiversity.

What Peace?

Green Economy to the Rescue?

What’s the alternative? Some propose “the green economy,” whose virtues are said to include sustainability, equity, renewable energy, local economies, fair trade, recycling, and closed-loop production. Although a step forward from sheer materialism, the green economy fails to confront the root cause of the problem, which is consumption mania. Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, and Ken Conca wrote in their book Confronting Consumption: “Much that is said today in the name of sustainability continues to stress the familiar environmental themes of population (too large), technology (not green enough), and economic growth (not enough of it in the right places). Consumption occasionally enters the discussion, but only in non-threatening ways, and most often in the form of calls for ‘green consumption’ or in support of some moral imperative to consume recycled or recyclable products. Much of this sustainable development talk steers clear of escalating consumption and, especially, the roots of such escalation.” Indeed, the green economy itself is a rapidly growing billion-dollar sector!

Moreover, the green economy’s proposed solutions are often accompanied by severe side effects. Consider biofuels, specifically ethanol. C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer wrote in their article “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor” in the journal Foreign Affairs (May/June 2007): “Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.” Timothy Searchinger, a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University, wrote in his article “Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat,” which was published in the NY Times: “Most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gases substantially.” Regarding solar power, Terrence J. Collins, an environmental expert and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote in his article “Turning Glare into Watts,” which was published in the New York Times: “The one thing that’s eventually going to raise its head is desert biodiversity, and the land area itself.”

Aside from these problems, we must keep in mind the enormity of the crisis we face, as documented in detail earlier in this article. When we consider this enormity, it is apparent that Green Economy is ineffective and superficial. A final problem with the green economy is that it doesn’t address the lack of spiritual well-being. Clearly we need a fundamental change in consciousness!

Spiritual Economics

Consumption mania is eliminated when we realize that we are transcendental beings who are inherently different from our physical bodies. According to the Bhagavad-gita (2.59), through genuine meditation one experiences a pleasure superior to the greatest material pleasure, which means that one naturally loses interest in unnecessary material things. The Bhagavad-gita (2.62–63) further says: “While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool.” This cycle is avoided by genuine meditation.

Srila Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, said, “By diverting attention to so many unwanted things, human energy is spoiled without achievement of spiritual realization, the prime necessity of human life. Advancement of material vision or material civilization is a great stumbling block for spiritual advancement. Such material advancement entangles the living being in the bondage of a material body, which is followed by all sorts of material miseries.”

Spiritual economics promotes the following desirable things: individual and collective material well-being, individual and collective spiritual well-being, positive psychology, occupations that satisfy psycho-physical needs, tools and methodologies to help people experience a higher pleasure, ideal self-sufficient communities, sustainable development, natural economics, simple life, social service, higher consciousness and activities, respect for nature, a focus on care and preservation, and nonviolence toward other humans, as well as animals and plants. Moreover, spiritual economics eliminates the following undesirable things: conflicts, personal and social imbalances, exploitation of the weak, materialism, social chaos, inequality, greed, scarcity, prejudice, discrimination, and unhealthy consumption. Keep in mind that real pleasure is in GIVING, not TAKING! But note that one who thinks himself a material product cannot stop thinking, fearing, and worrying about his material security, and thus the greed forces in the culture of TAKING and pushes out the culture of GIVING.

Ruins of a stunningle beautiful temple in the jungles of Cambodia now stand as a monument to a culture that strived for spiritual achievements.

This happened to me when I was touring Europe with a hardcore punk band named Shelter.

The show is finished, and the equipment is loaded. The van sits before the front door, and I sit inside the van. It is cold and windy on the German shore.

Three guys approach—young, clean cut & straight-edged. They want to do an interview… “I don’t need Krishna,” says the spokesman, with an unforgettable German accent. “I have my own way.”

“That’s cool…” I say. “What ‘way’ is that”?

Lots of hesitation. Lots of stuttering. Lots of eyes darting back and forth between the three of them. Finally the spokesman speaks up: “I believe in my own self. I rely on my own self. I follow only my own self.”

“You believe in your self, rely on your self, and follow yourself. Great… Who is that self”?

More darting eyes and stuttering. Sentences begin, but are consumed by confusion, and silence dominates. They cannot answer.

I ask them, “How can you believe in it, rely on it, and follow it if you don’t even know what it is”?

Silence is spoken in German.

“See, that’s why you do need Krishna consciousness.”

No comment returned.

“The first point is that the self is not the body”.

He sits up straight in the van chair and says, “Yes. I am not the body. I am the collection of the ideals that my brothers and I share in common.”

“These ideals are not the self,” I say. “They’re all impressed upon you from out-side yourself.”

They eventually agree: The self is beyond the body and ideals of the mind. Then I ask, “We know what the self isn’t. But, what is it?”

“The spirit?”

“Yeah. The self is a particle of spirit, a part of the complete spirit. Just like a guitar string is a part of the complete guitar. If you rip off that guitar string and throw it on the sidewalk out here—what value does it have?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, not a whole lot,” I say. “It’s useless. But when you connect that string to the complete guitar, tune it up and that—it has so much value, right? It can make music. It can make songs… The string is valuable when it works for the complete guitar; but on its own, sitting on the sidewalk, it’s worthless. The part becomes useless when it’s not connected to the complete unit.”

They nod.

“The self, the individual spirit,” I continued, “is a part of the complete spirit. When the self tries to live separately from the complete self, he or she is like the guitar string rusting on the sidewalk. And that’s what we’ve done—disconnected ourselves from the Complete. Just like the guitar string, our value is forgotten, our meaning is forgotten. Most of our time is spent trying to fill in the gaps of a hollow life as we loiter on the sidewalk.”

“The real nature of the self,” I enthusiastically continue, “is to serve the complete self, just like the string serves the complete guitar and reaches its highest expression and fulfillment in the process.”

“What do you mean, ‘complete self’?” they ask.

“You know: Krishna. The highest expression of the self is to serve Krishna.”

“Oh.”

“That’s what it really means to ‘follow yourself’..That’s Krishna consciousness”.

They were thoughtful. I was thankful.

Vic DiCara

Speaking in Boston before the International Student Societ, Srila Prabhupada provides a practical, simple, and profound solution for world peace and harmony. Noting the increasing number of flags at the United Nations building in New York, he states that inter-nationalism is failing because “your international feeling and my international feeling are overlapping and conflicting. We have to find the proper center for our loving feelings.”

By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Right Center of Affection

Your society is known as the Inter­national Student Society. There are many other international societies, such as the United Nations. The idea of an international society is very nice, but we must try to understand what should be the central idea of an international society. If you throw a stone into the middle of a pool of water, a circle will expand to the limit of the bank. Similarly, radio waves expand in a circle, and when you capture the waves with your radio you can hear the message. In the same way, our loving feeling can also expand. At the beginning of our life, we simply want to eat. Whatever a small child grabs, he wants to eat. Then, as he grows a little, he tries to participate with his brothers and sisters. This is an increase in the feeling of fellowship. Then, as he grows up, he begins to feel love for his parents, then for his community, for his country, and at last for all nations. But unless the center is right, that expansion of feeling—even if it is national or international—is not perfect.

You feel for other Americans because they are born in this country. You may even sacrifice your life for your countrymen. But there is a defect. If the definition of national is “one who is born in a particular country,” then why are the animals born in America not considered Americans? We are not expanding our feelings beyond the human society because we don’t think animals are our countrymen; we send them to the slaughterhouse.

The center of our national or international feeling is not fixed on the proper object. If the center is right, then you can draw any number of circles around that center and they will never overlap. They will simply keep growing, growing, growing. They will not intersect with one another if the center is all right. Unfortunately, although everyone is feeling nationally or internationally, the center is missing. Therefore your international feeling and my international feeling, your national feeling and my national feeling, are overlapping and conflicting. So we have to find the proper center for our loving feelings. Then we can expand our circle of feelings and it will not overlap or conflict with others’. That center is Krishna.

Mahatma – A Great Soul

Our society, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, is teaching the people of all countries that the center of their affection should be Krishna. In other words, we are teaching people to be mahatmas. You may have heard this word mahatma before. It is a Sanskrit word that is applied to a person whose mind is expanded, whose circle of feelings is very much expanded. He is a mahatma. Maha means big or great, and atma means soul. He who has expanded his soul is called a mahatma.

The Bhagavad-gita, an ancient Indian spiritual text, gives a description of the person who has widely expanded his feelings:

bahunam janmanam ante
jnanavan mam prapadyate
vasudevah sarvam iti
sa mahatma su-durlabhah

The first idea in this mantra is that one can become a mahatma only after many births. The soul is transmigrating through many bodies, one after another. There are 8,400,000 different species of life, and we evolve through them until at last we come to the human form. Only then can we become a mahatma. This is why Krishna says “After many, many births one may become a mahatma.”

A similar mantra is labdhva su-durlabham idam bahu-sambhavante: “After many births you have achieved a human body, which is difficult to get.” This human form of life is not cheap. After being born in at least 8,000,000 different species, we get this human form.

Highest Spiritual Platform

If one is actually cultivating spiritual knowledge—not in one, but in many lives—one eventually comes to the highest platform of knowledge and is called jnanavan, or the possessor of true knowledge. Then, Krishna says, “He turns toward Me, Krishna, the all-attractive Supreme Personality.”

Now, why does a man in knowledge turn toward Krishna? Because he knows that Krishna is the central point of all loving feelings. After cultivating knowledge for many births, a person who expands his consciousness up to the point of loving God—he is a mahatma, a great soul. God is great, and His devotee is also great. But, Krishna says, sa mahatma su-durlabhah: “That great soul is rarely to be seen.”

Now, we have expanded our feelings of love to various objects. We may love our country, our community, our family, our cats and dogs. In any case, we expand our love according to our knowledge. And when our knowledge is perfect, we come to the point of loving Krishna. That is the perfection. Love of Krishna is the aim of all activities, the aim of life.

Symptoms of a Great Soul

Now, suppose a man says, “I have expanded my feelings of love widely.” That is all right, but he must show the symptoms of how his feelings of love are expanded. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita:

vidya-vinaya-sampanne
brahmane gavi hastini
suni caiva svapake ca
panditah sama-darsinah

If one is actually a pundit, someone who is elevated to the stage of perfect wisdom, then he must see everyone on an equal platform. Because the vision of a pundit is no longer absorbed simply with the physical body, he sees a learned brahmin as a spirit soul, he sees a dog as a spirit soul, he sees an elephant as a spirit soul. There are many social classes in human society, but if a man is really learned he sees everyone, every living entity, on the same level. That is the stage of true learning.

We are trying to expand our feelings socially, communally, nationally, internationally, or universally. That is our natural function—to expand our consciousness. But my point is that if we actually want to expand our consciousness to the utmost, we must find out the real center of existence. That center is Krishna.

Whatever we see is made up of various energies of God. It is said, “The Supreme Absolute Truth has many varieties of energies.” And these energies are acting so nicely that it appears they are working automatically. For example, we have all seen a blooming flower. We may think that it has automatically blossomed and become so beautiful. But no, the material energy of God is acting. Similarly, Krishna has a spiritual energy, and a mahatma, one who is broad-minded, is under the protection of that spiritual energy; he is not under the spell of the material energy. What is the symptom of that protection? “A mahatma is always engaged in devotional service to Me.” That is the main symptom of a mahatma. Does he engage in this devotional service blindly? No. Krishna says “He knows perfectly that I am the source of everything.”

First Enlightenment, Then Unity

The nations are trying to be united. In your country there is the United Nations. Unfortunately, instead of the nations becoming united, the flags are increasing. Similarly, India was once one country, Hindustan. Now there is also Pakistan. And some time in the future there will be Sikhistan and then some other “stan.” Instead of becoming united we are becoming disunited, because we are missing the center. Therefore, my request is that you please try to find out the real center of your international movement. Then your international movement will be perfect.

Mayor of Geneva greets Srila Prabhupada

In the Fourteenth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gita it is said,

sarva-yonisu kaunteya
murtayah sambhavanti yah
tasam brahma mahad yonir
aham bija-pradah pita

Here Krishna says, “I am the father of all forms of life. The material nature is the mother, and I am the seed-giving father.” Without a father and mother, no one can be born. The father gives the seed, and the mother supplies the body. In this material world the mother of every one of us—from the highest being down to the ant—is the material nature. Our body is matter; therefore it is a gift of the material nature, our mother. But I, the spirit soul, am part and parcel of the supreme father, Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada interviewed by a news reporter

Ascetics in India in search of their Authenticity

Authenticity is a popular topic these days. Many people feel that they should be authentic in expressing themselves without inhibition. For example, if I feel like burping, I should do so without consideration of social impropriety. Might as well do it as loud as I can.

Authenticity is, and has always been, greatly appreciated. For example, when shopping for diamonds, much care is taken to insure that they are authentic, and serious consequences are in store for a guy who has sold us fake diamonds. If a manufacturer of a famous name-brand watch or pair of shoes cheats by placing his brand on an inferior product, we are naturally outraged when we find out about it. Similarly, in relationships between people, the last thing we want is an inauthentic relationship. Especially in romantic relationships, tremendous value is placed on being “true,” to the extent that it is not uncommon to hear of a man killing his wife (or vice versa) when he or she finds out the spouse has been consorting with a paramour. How quickly intense love and attachment turns into anger, hate, and vengefulness as soon as inauthenticity is detected!

Now, it is interesting to note that although we find inauthenticity abominable in others, we nevertheless manage to rationalize it in ourselves! How many times have we been inauthentic in our dealings with others and yet justified our behavior in various ways, such as “I was forced to do it,” or “It is normal to be inauthentic. You need to be that way in order to prosper in this day and age.”

Although everyone decries inauthenticity, there sure is a lot of it going around. Anti-virus companies pretend to be rendering a valuable service to people by protecting them from nasty computer viruses, but very likely they created the viruses in the first place! After all, without a steady supply of new viruses, how could they keep extracting money from frightened computer users? How often do we hear a businessman say “For you I make no profit,” only later to find out that he is making 300% profit? Some of the most effective scams are perpetrated by governments, since they have the resources to cheat people while masquerading as their greatest well-wishers. There are tantalizing indications that 9-11 was orchestrated by our own government, which, while claiming to combat terrorism, uses this as an excuse to exploit Middle East countries for oil. In 1972 Nixon took us off the gold standard, which means that, since then, gold is no longer obtainable on demand for dollars, as was formerly the case. This means that the government can rob you simply by printing more paper money. It’s worth remembering that in 1966 gas was 25 cents per gallon and a new Ford Mustang cost $2,500. Let us not forget that Income Tax is unconstitutional, as most lawyers know.

The Fundamental Cause of Inauthenticity

Krishna is the Supreme Authentic

Why is inauthenticity so rampant despite everyone detesting it? The answer is that all of us have a fundamentally wrong conception of who we actually are; we identify ourselves as material when factually we are not (an article elsewhere in this issue presents scientific evidence for this). No wonder cheating is so all-pervasive; it starts with our cheating ourselves! Right from the start the very basis is wrong, so it is not surprising that everything that follows is influenced by this primordial mistake. In fact, this primordial inauthenticity results in an entire lifetime of mistakes, one after another. We have tried so many things for genuine happiness, but they always fall short. Real enjoyment should not require labor; it should spring from within as a natural part of our innermost being. A kind of pleasure that lasts a few minutes a day but requires many hours of work is not real pleasure.

Material Nature Is Like a Bully

The materialist identifies with ma­terial nature and consequently cannot rise above the miseries imposed by it. But the spiritualist does not identify with material nature and so does not experience material distress, although his body may be undergoing the same conditions. Think of material nature like a bully. Perhaps the most frightening situation is one in which we are forced to undergo something with no options. If we think about it, that’s exactly what material nature does to us all the time, right from the start. Birth is forced on us—no choices are given. I might have wanted different parents, a different city to grow up in, a stronger body, a better brain, better looks, etc. But no one gave me a choice. Just consider puberty—hormones boiling, and with this a radical change in world view; now it is no longer acceptable to be satisfied with riding a tricycle through the woods—you’ve got to attract a mate, you’ve got to work hard in high school so you can go to a reputable university so you can get a good job, because no girl is going to want you unless you have money and prestige. Thus, puberty ushers in an avalanche of anxieties, necessities, and obligations, all of which are imposed on us with absolutely no choice. No wonder practically every teenager contemplates suicide at least once. Essentially one is forced to be a slave of the myriad desires generated by the mind and body. This situation persists for decades, after which a new terror looms on the horizon—the specter of old age. Gone are the good looks and sensual prowess of former decades; now one must contend with decrepitude and failing health. Imagine the suffering of a once-beautiful woman who must now deal with wrinkles, sagging curves, and unsightly fat. In the past, simply by walking down the street, she made heads turn and eyes stare; now she walks neglected and unnoticed. And, of course, the final crushing blow is death, about which we have no choice. Thus, for our whole life material nature pushes us around like a bully. It is interesting to see how a materialistic society tacitly reinforces inauthenticity by rewarding you for it and penalizing you for being authentic. Successful actors, actresses, and others, who are strongly devoted to falsely identifying with their physical bodies, are adored, worshiped and given handsome monetary remuneration, whereas genuine meditators and philosophers are ignored. In ignorance we dodge the issue by saying, “That’s just the way it is.”

Distinguishing Between Material and Spiritual

Some people say “We are all spiritual,” or “I am spiritual,” but what does this actually mean? One guy told me he strongly feels God’s presence when surfing. Since the distinction between ma­terial and spiritual is of monumental importance, it is necessary to provide a clear definition: spiritual means beyond the dualities of mater (being indifferent to material pleasure and pain), as well as established in a relationship with Krishna, the Divine. A fundamental solution to the problem of inauthenticity, as well as a practical method of achieving spiritual realization, involves meditation. Meditating on the Hare Krishna mantra by chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare connects us with our spiritual identity and with Krishna, the source of spiritual energy, and also permanently relieves us of the most fundamental ignorance, the false ego. It also gives us the intelligence to live in this world free from inauthenticity. How do we know we are making progress in this meditation? We know we are making progress when we feel less and less attracted to materialistic association and activities, and more and more attracted to associating with advanced spiritualists. This process of meditation produces a pleasure many times greater than the best material pleasures, and this higher pleasure can be experienced even in the beginning stages by following the proper, authentic methodology, which is described in great detail in theBhagavad-gita and other Vedic texts.

Sometime in the 1730’s a young Scottish philosopher tried, and failed, to find himself. David Hume reflected upon this experience in his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). The passage is much quoted and anthologized. I encountered it frequently as an undergraduate philosophy major, for my teachers regarded it as a watershed in Western philosophy. They revered David Hume—progenitor of the hard-nosed, no-nonsense style of empiricism they professed—and they amused their classes by reproducing in a Scottish burr a famous remark by the great philosopher’s mother: “Oor Davie’s a fine, good-natured crater, but uncommon wake-minded.”

Well, sons are sometimes hard on mothers, too. That was why I had the afternoon last fall to take my two grandsons on a search for the self, some 260 years after Davie had looked in vain. This Saturday my harried daughter needed a break, so my wife and I were at her house trying to load Paramesvara (age five), Bhaktivinoda (three and a half), and all their weekend gear into our car. In the midst of a great deal of coming and going, Paramesvara and I found ourselves at one point alone together in the car. We chatted. I was struck once more by how bright this lanky, tow-headed boy was, and I wondered how much of the philosophy of Krishna consciousness he understood. I decided to begin with what Srila Prabhupada called “the first lesson.”

Making sure I had his attention, I said, “Paramesvara, do you know you’re not your body?”

“I’m not?” he exclaimed in amazement. He looked at me expectantly, awaiting explanation.

“That’s right. You’re not. You’re the soul, the spirit soul.”

He knew plenty of Krishna stories but, it seemed, no philosophy. Was he too young? His astonishment told me he was ready—my statement didn’t just go past him or bewilder him. Yet how could I get him to understand the soul? I did not want him simply reciting stock, catechistic responses that had no meaning for him.

Before I could go any further we were interrupted: “Jaga! Jaga! Help me!”

This was Bhaktivinoda, stranded on the sidewalk with a spill of paraphernalia, calling his older brother, whose in-house name is “Jaga” or “Jaga-bear.” (I can’t tell you why.) After we had packed the trunk and settled back-seat territorial disputes, Jaga went back inside to look for the trip snack-bag, leaving me alone with Bhaktivinoda, or, conveniently, “T-Node.” T-Node is a rolly-polly kind of kid with a pale, circular face that’s surrounded by a sunburst of curly hair so blonde it’s nearly white. A toddler’s lisp overlays his low, gravelly voice.

I had him alone: How would someone this young respond? Would he be interested at all?

“T-Node,” I asked in a serious voice, “do you know you’re not your body?”

“I’m not?” he exclaimed at once, his eyes wide with astonishment. He looked up at me, waiting.

“No, you’re not. When Jaga comes back I’ll explain it.” I began making plans.

My wife agreed to drive, and by the time we made the turnpike I was ready. I had remembered how Srila Prabhupada had taught some schoolchildren and decided to try it.

I twisted around to face the boys in the back seat. “Now I’ll show you that you’re not your body. First stick your pointing finger out straight, like this. OK? Good. Now just do what I tell you. Ready?”

They were; they were into it.

“Now: point to your nose!” I pointed to my nose, Jaga to his, T-Node to his.

“Now point to your belly!” We all did. I led them through a sequence: elbow, eye, foot, knee, chest …

(Once they got going I stopped pointing.) I hammed it up a bit and gradually gained speed until I reached the punchline: “Now point to your self!” Consternation. Pointing fingers waved about aimlessly, eyebrows knit together in bafflement. They laughed … “What? What?” Jaga said, his finger looping around like a bottled-up fly.

“See!” I said. “You can’t point to yourself. That’s because you are not your body! You’re the soul.”

T-Node was thunderstruck; he had clearly undergone an intellectual breakthrough. His face was lit up with the wonder of discovery.

“Do it again! Do it again!” T-Node begged. We went through the sequence a few times, and each time it worked to both boys’ satisfaction. “I’m not my body,” I heard T-Node saying to himself. “I am the soul.” It seemed to sound right to him.

But I felt an unease, a mental chill, almost a presence. It was the ghost of David Hume. With suave, measured tones that nicely set off a hint of contempt, I heard the words of the Treatise announcing the position about to be demolished:

“There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self. …”

But where, Hume asks, could we get the idea of a self from? All real ideas are based on “impressions”—on sensations, passions, or emotions. We must be able to analyze or dissect ideas down to show ultimately the impressions that produced them. If we cannot, then the so-called idea is meaningless. What impression, Hume asks, is responsible for the idea of a single, simple, enduring, unchanging self?

“If any impression gives rise to the idea of self,” Hume wrote, “that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea.”

Yet don’t we need a self to possess or unify all our particular impressions? Well, where is it?

“For my part,” continued Hume, “when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”

A person may attest that he perceives “something simple and continued, which he calls himself,” Hume says, “though I am certain there is no such principle in me.” Setting such “metaphysicians” aside, Hume affirms that humans “are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

Statue of David Hume, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Haunted by Hume, I kept on conversing with the metaphysicians in the back seat while the Pennsylvania croplands poured away behind them. They were learning to discriminate between matter and spirit. I held a rubber ball in my hand and beat it with a fist.

“See? I can hit it over and over again—hard—and it never goes ‘Ow!’ It never cries. But if I hit you”—they bobbed away from my slow-motion punch—”you’ll feel it. You’ll cry. That’s because there is a soul—you—in your body. But there’s no soul in this ball.”

“This morning Jaga hit me and made me cry,” T-Node said.

“If you hit a cat or dog, it feels it,” Jaga quickly put in. “It is also a spirit soul.”

“Even ants or spiders,” I added.

T-Node looked down guiltily. He’s been known to step on ants on purpose.

How could Hume have missed himself? Was he being willfully obtuse? Imagine him conducting an inventory of his mental contents, like an auctioneer appraising the contents of an estate up for sale. He walks through each room, examining each object. Picking it up, setting it down. Looking for something in particular. “Is this myself? Is this? Is this?” After an exhaustive search, he reports—truthfully enough—that he didn’t find it.

But who is looking? Who is inspecting this memory, this joy, this love, this fear, this regret, this ambition, this or that train of thought? David, you could not find your self in all that because none of that, taken separately or all together, is your self. The self is not the seen but the seer, not the experience but the experiencer. You are not even David Hume, but rather the experiencer of being David Hume.

Teaching my grandsons had given me a new insight into the Treatise. Like T-Node and Jaga, David Hume had been playing the pointing game. T-Node and Jaga played by pointing to different parts of their bodies, while David played by pointing to different parts of his mind—the subtle body. I could take Davie through it point by point, running through the inventory of mental goods, until: “Point to your self!” And the indexical Human finger wavers, finding no object. “See!” I’d say. “You’re not your mind. You’re the spirit soul.”

For we are no more to be identified with our minds than with our bodies. The mind belongs to the category of the not-self as much as the body does. Both mind and body are material, the former being merely finer or subtler than the latter. Vedic seers know this, but Western philosophers have conflated the spiritual and the mental; “mind” and “soul” are synonymous. David Hume discovered in the Treatise that the mind was not the self, but he drew a false conclusion: there was no self, no soul, at all.

My grandsons were doing better:

“What happens if I attack the soul with ninja swords?”

“Nothing! It can’t be cut!”

“What happens if I drop a huge rock on it?”

“It can’t be smashed!”

“What happens if I put a blowtorch to it?”

“It can’t be burnt!”

“How can I kill the soul?”

“You can’t! You can’t kill the soul!”

They were good students. They made me wish I had Davie in my class along with them. I thought about that. Since the presence of such a great philosopher might intimidate me, I would want his mother along too. She sounded like a formidable woman, and she seemed to know her son.

During his days as a monk, Vic DiCara stayed involved with the hardcore scene. Playing with some of the most popular bands of the time not only brought him fame but gave him a chance to field many questions from his fans and others.

HERE’s a letter he got:

Let’s face it man, you joined a club just like everyone else. You all dress the same. You all have the same bald head. You all believe the same things… You totally gave up your individuality, man. Sheep. You joined the herd, that’s all. You give it up. You’re no longer a person.

HERE’s what he wrote back:

You seem to value individuality very highly. But what you say in your letter destroys true individuality and defines people as nothing more than blank robots ready to be programmed.

According to you, a person has to be made into an individual by the clothes he/she wears, the music he/she listens to, etc. It’s the things we do that make us into the individuals we are, and if we don’t do the ‘right’ things (like if we shave our heads and wear robes) we lose our individuality.

If I have to make myself an individual, then I must not be an individual to begin with. I must be some kind of blank slate who has to go out and buy my personhood and wear my “individuality.”

You’ve turned individuality into something bought from thrift stores and hair salons.

Individuality. Behind the masks. Beyond the labels.

I don’t subscribe.

Being Krishna conscious, I don’t take individuality so cheaply. An individual
is something I am, not something I be­come. Real individuality is not the clothes you wear, or the style of your hair. It’s deep inside the self—an unalterable, eternal reality.

Take 300 people. Give them all the exact same haircut, dress them all up in identical 3-piece suits and ties, and line them up against a white wall. That’s 300 people with exactly the same clothes and hair. But if you go and talk to them, you’ll find each one remains a unique person, a unique individual.

Our dress doesn’t make or break our individuality. A green vinyl spiked jumpsuit and purple beehive hairdo make me no more or less an individual then an orange robe and a shaved head, because individuality has nothing to do with external appearance.

Therefore, just because all the monks dress similarly doesn’t mean they’ve lost their individuality.

“But you all believe the same thing. That makes you one big herd of sheep…”

I don’t get your logic. You’re saying individuality is preserved only as long as people disagree with each other? As soon as they all agree, they become a bunch of clones, a “herd of sheep?” That’s a zany philosophy, bro.

In math everyone believes 2+2=4. Everyone believes the same exact thing. Do you plan on writing to all the mathematicians, informing them that they’re all a bunch of mindless followers, a herd of sheep with no individuality?

Like math, Krishna consciousness is an empirically verifiable science that deals rationally with the subject of spirituality. Thus it’s no more unusual for two monks to believe the same basic things than it is for two mathematicians to believe 2+2=4.

A person’s individuality is not lost by becoming Krishna conscious. On the contrary, our true individuality will not fully manifest until we become Krishna conscious.

A spiritual practitioner intensely loves individuality and personality, knowing that these qualities are two of the most essential qualities of the deepest self. But when we plunge into material consciousness, we bury that priceless individuality, smothering the self under mountains of ego, profiles, and false identities.

Mainstream society “educates” us to live as if we are our physical bodies. That makes us objects, non-persons, non-
individuals.

Here is how a regular, mainstream educated fellow thinks:

- I see the self as the physical body.
- The body is a collection of atoms and electrons.
- Atoms and electrons are objects, without personality or individuality.
- Therefore I see myself as an object, without personality or individuality.

The body is a costume of the soul, a temporary character accepted in the fantasy-role-playing game of material life. To become Krishna conscious is to gradually rise above the confining illusion of bodily identification and uncover the true self, the real individual person—the person behind all the masks, beyond all the labels.

Krishna consciousness does not take away individuality. It reveals the fullest potential of individuality by reviving the original spiritual identity.

Forty years of research by Professor Ian Stevenson (University of Virginia) provides impressive evidence that each one of us is different from his/her physical body and is able to function independently of it. Stevenson has published dozens of carefully-researched cases (see bibliography) in which young children report verifiable details of what they claim were previous lives. The following is a typical case in terms of obscure and detailed information reported by the child. It is atypical in that the previous personality predicted his rebirth.

Obscure and Verifiable Details

In 1945 Victor Vincent, a resident of Sitka, Alaska, informed a young friend of his, Mrs. Chotkin, that he was to die soon and be reborn as her son. He expressed the desire that in his next life as her son he would not stutter as he did in this life. He pulled up his shirt and showed her a scar on his back that was the result of a surgical operation performed several years earlier. The small round holes of the stitches were clearly visible. He also showed her a scar on the right side of his nose (near the eye) that was the result of a surgical operation there. He informed her that in his next life as her son he would have the same marks on his body in the same places, and thereby she would be able to recognize him as Victor Vincent reborn.

A year later he died. Eighteen months thereafter Mrs. Chotkin gave birth to a boy she named Corliss. She told Stevenson that on the body of Corliss at the time of his birth were the same marks, in the same places, as those on the body of Victor Vincent. In 1962 Stevenson visited Alaska and described the mark on Corliss’s back: “It was heavily pigmented and raised. It extended about one inch in length and a quarter inch in width. Along its margins one could still easily discern several small round marks outside the main scar. Four of these on one side lined up like the stitch wounds of surgical operations” (Stevenson, 1974, p.260).

Eliminating Alternate Explanations

Critics claiming fraud by Mrs. Chotkin for monetary gain are silenced by Stevenson’s report that she gained no money from him or anyone else. The claim that she faked the case for notoriety is refuted by the fact that hardly anyone (including her own daughter) was aware that she believed Corliss was Victor Vincent reborn. The claim that she faked the birthmarks is hard to believe, since she was a simple housewife with no access to the sophisticated lab equipment required to fake birthmarks. In fact, it is doubtful that anyone in the world in 1962 would have been able to fake the birthmarks well enough to fool Stevenson (himself an M.D. and professor).

One day when Corliss’s mother was trying to get him to say his name, instead of saying the name “Corliss” he said “Don’t you know me? I’m Kahkody” (Stevenson, 1974, p.260). Kahkody was a nickname of Victor Vincent.

Corliss identified strongly with Victor Vincent and was able to spontaneously recognize a number of people that Victor Vincent had known. Stevenson (1974, p.261) said that when Corliss was two years old he recognized Victor Vincent’s son named William. Corliss saw him on the street and spontaneously said, “There is William, my son.” About that same time Corliss also spontaneously recognized a stepdaughter of Victor Vincent’s. He saw her at the docks of Sitka and correctly said her name, Susie. At that time he was being pushed by his mother along the street in a carriage. Stevenson said that Corliss exhibited great excitement when he saw her, so much so that he was jumping up and down. He said, “There is my Susie.” Corliss also hugged her with great affection. Corliss recognized Susie before his mother had noticed her. Stevenson mentioned that Mrs. Chotkin did not go to the docks with the intention of meeting Susie. In a similar way, when Corliss was three years old he spontaneously recognized and Victor Vincent’s widow and called her by her correct name, Rose. He recognized her in a crowd of people before Mrs. Chotkin had seen her. Stevenson reported that Corliss also recognized a number of other people that Victor Vincent had known.

Stevenson (1974, p.261-262) wrote that Corliss was able to provide a detailed account of certain events that had occurred in the life of Victor Vincent. One day Corliss related an experience Vincent had had when he was out on a fishing trip. The engine of Vincent’s boat had broken and left him helpless in one of the many hazardous channels of southeastern Alaska. Vincent wanted to attract the attention of any ship that might be passing by, but he thought that most crews would not take much notice of an ordinary fisherman. It turns out that he happened to be a part-time worker for the Salvation Army, and he had with him a Salvation Army uniform. He put on this uniform and rowed in a small boat to attract the attention of a passing ship named the North Star. He asked some of the crew members to deliver a message for him. Mrs. Chotkin heard this story directly from Victor Vincent himself when he was alive. She was sure that Corliss had not heard the story from her or her husband before he told it to them.

On another occasion Mrs. Chotkin and Corliss were at the house that was previously owned by Mrs. Chotkin and her family during the life of Victor Vincent. Corliss pointed to a room in the house and said that he (as Vincent) and his wife had slept in this room when they visited the Chotkins. This statement is impressive since at the time Corliss was visiting the house, it had been reorganized and was being used for purposes other than an ordinary residential house. None of the rooms in it were recognizable as bedrooms. But the room that Corliss pointed to had in fact been occupied by Victor Vincent and his wife when they had visited the Chotkins.

The claim that Corliss acquired all this information by psychic power (and hence reincarnation is not required to explain the informational aspects of this and other similar cases) is refuted by the observation that Corliss was unable to provide such impressive information about anyone other than Victor Vincent. The same is true for the many other cases reported by Stevenson.

Mrs. Chotkin told Stevenson that certain of Corliss’s behavior patterns closely resembled those of Victor Vincent. She mentioned that Corliss combed his hair forward over his forehead in the same way that Vincent had done, although she had tried to train Corliss to comb his hair in exactly the opposite manner.

As mentioned earlier, Victor Vincent stuttered severely and told Mrs. Chotkin a year before his death that he hoped he would stutter less in his next life as her son. Corliss also stuttered severely when he was young, until he received speech therapy around the age of ten. Vincent was a very religious Christian. When Corliss was young, he expressed similar devoutness. Vincent was very fond of handling boats and living on the water. Corliss had the same interest. In fact, Corliss surprised his parents by repairing a boat engine without any training. Both Vincent and Corliss were left-handed.

Correlation Between Birthmarks and Wounds

Stevenson (1987, p.101) wrote that he had researched hundreds of cases in which a child claiming reincarnation had distinctive birthmarks supporting this claim, and in about thirty cases he had obtained independent corroboration (in the form of medical records or autopsies) of similar marks on the body of the previous personality. These are described in Stevenson (1997). There are many cases in which a child reported that he was violently murdered (usually by shooting or stabbing) in his previous life, and the child had on his body a birthmark of the same shape and in the same place as the fatal wound in his previous life. Stevenson wrote (1987, p.101): “Birthmarks and birth defects related to the previous personality seem to me to provide some of the strongest evidence in favor of reincarnation as the best interpretation for the cases. They are objectively observable (I have photographed several hundred of them), and for most of them the only serious alternative explanation that I can think of is a psychic force on the part of the baby’s mother that influences the body of the embryo or fetus within her. However, this explanation, which is itself almost as mind-stretching (for the average Westerner) as reincarnation, can be firmly excluded in about twelve cases in which the child’s mother and father had never heard of the identified previous personality until after the child’s birth.”

Those who want to eliminate the hypothesis of reincarnation and explain everything as psychic force on the part of the child must take into account the fact that the marks are present on the child’s body at the time of birth. This means that the child would have had to be able to wield this psychic force while in his mother’s womb, which is more consistent with the hypothesis of reincarnation than psychic force without reincarnation.

Functioning Without a Physical Body

Dr. Stevenson reported a number of cases in which the conscious self existed for days, weeks and even years without a physical body and acquired information by transcorporal senses. (Transcorporal senses refer to senses that are different from those of the physical body and able to function independently of it.) For example, a Thai boy named Bongkuch Promsin claimed that in his previous life he was a Laotian man named Chamrat who was stabbed to death (Stevenson, 1987, p.68). After the murder, the conscious self that had resided in the body of Chamrat remained in a discarnate state for seven years, staying near a bamboo tree in the vicinity of the murder. One rainy day the discarnate Chamrat saw Bongkuch’s father and accompanied him home on a bus. Bongkuch’s father later told Stevenson that he happened to visit Hua Tanon (the place where Chamrat was murdered) shortly before his wife became pregnant with Bongkuch. Bongkuch’s father said that the day he went to Hua Tanon was in fact a rainy day.

An Indian boy named Veer Singh said that after the death of his previous body (belonging to a man named Som Dutt) he, as a discarnate conscious self, remained near Som Dutt’s family and observed their activities. Veer Singh said that he accompanied members of this family who left the house at night and went out alone. Stevenson said that Som Dutt’s mother had a dream in which Som Dutt told her that he had accompanied his brother a number of times when his brother had surreptitiously left the house at night to attend local fairs. When this brother was asked, he admitted that he was in fact attending local fairs at night, but no one in the family knew about it until Som Dutt’s mother had this dream. Stevenson added that Veer Singh also knew about other private family affairs that took place after Som Dutt’s death and before Veer Singh was born, including the fact that the family bought a camel, that they were involved in a lawsuit, and that several children were born during this period (Stevenson, 1987, p.110).

The persons who reported seeing things in the discarnate state could not have been using physical eyes. Thus, the above evidence supports the hypothesis that the conscious self is inherently transcorporal and possesses transcorporal senses.

Reincarnation is a Natural Process That Happens to All of Us

The idea that reincarnation is a natural process that all conscious selves
undergo when their physical bodies die is supported by Stevenson’s statements that it is easy to find persons who claim to remember a previous life in certain places such as West Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon and the northwestern part of North America (Stevenson 1980, p.13; 1987, p.93). Stevenson said that in these places he has received so many reports of possible cases that he simply did not have enough time to investigate them all. It is important to note that cases of the reincarnation type are found not only in southeast Asia but all over the world. Stevenson wrote, “Fortunately, many new cases are available, and as I mentioned in the General Introduction to this series, I should have no difficulty whatever in indicating places in several countries where an investigator can easily find more cases of this type than he could possibly study” (Stevenson, 1980, p.351).

Stevenson mentioned that he has also found and investigated many cases of the reincarnation type in the other parts of North America and Europe. The lesser frequency of reported cases in these countries is due to the fact that many parents ignore or suppress their children’s statements that would support such cases, and hence they can not come to the attention of investigators like Stevenson (Stevenson, 1987, p.93-94). Careful studies by other scientists have uncovered dozens of cases similar to those reported by Stevenson. See, for example, Pasricha (1990, 1992, 1998), Mills (1989, 1990), Haraldsson (1991, 1997), and Keil (1996).

One might raise the following objection: “If reincarnation is actually true, why don’t I or more people I know remember a previous life?” A reasonable answer is that the power to remember a previous life is a rare talent like Einstein’s mathematical talent or Mozart’s musical talent. The fact that I and my friends do not have these talents does not mean that no one has these talents. Obviously Einstein and Mozart were real historical persons. Another important consideration is that there are things which we know we went through (such as being in our mother’s womb) but which we have no memory of. To say that I was not in my mother’s womb because I don’t remember it is clearly fallacious logic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Haraldsson, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1997, 11(3), 323
Haraldsson, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1991, 5(2), 233
Keil, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1996, 10(4), 467
Mills, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1990, 4(2), 171
Mills, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1989, 3(2), 133
Pasricha, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1998, 12(2), 259
Pasricha, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1992, 6(2), 167
Pasricha, S., Claims of Reincarnation, New Delhi: Harman, 1990
Stevenson, I., Reincarnation and Biology, London: Praeger, 1997
Stevenson, I., Children Who Remember Previous Lives, University of
Virginia Press, 1987
Stevenson, I., Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Volume 3, University
of Virginia Press, 1980
Stevenson, I., Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, University
of Virginia Press, 1974