These days they say that story shouldn’t start from the beginning. If you want to intrigue readers you better pick it somewhere in the middle or even in the very end. Well I don’t know how this tale ends (I can only hope for the best), and it started like for all of us – in the dawn of time, long before the memory can reach, there was a wandering lost soul and a sadhu with a merciful heart. Maybe some adventurous Portuguese merchant of old stepped out of his ship in the Bombay’s dock and passing near an old Vaisnava mendicant casually threw him a copper coin and the Vaisnava smiled. Or maybe a young prostitute from Dar es Salaam gave a mango fruit to a young immigrant boy running through the dusty, African streets, whose father happened to be a worshipper of Visnu and later offered that fruit to his beloved deity. Or maybe once there was an ugly puppy dog trudging near the temple… There is beginning to all our journeys.
But let’s start from the middle…
* * *
The sadhu stepped into the temple room and I realized that my heart is as messy as the last year, when I saw him last. I still liked Jeniffer Connely, stories about Sandman, I wasn’t reading labels on the chocolate bars, I was still choosing the bigger, preferably biggest piece of something (whether a piece of cake or a samosa) instead of leaving it to the next in the cue, I was thinking about the last episode of Game of Thrones or Dexter while chanting, or I had days I wasn’t chanting at all…
That made me to blush. I remember quite distinctly that exactly one year ago I promised myself that from now on I will try to progress more then ever, this time properly. It haven’t exactly work as I wanted it to, but hey, here he was again, and so was I, so there was no reason to despair. I was embarrassed, but I knew there is always a chance to have a new start. Apparently the offer never expires.
Swami looked around. His eyes moved slowly through our faces tense with anticipation. He smiled.
“I’m happy to be with all of you again. This morning we will talk about the first verse of Brahma Samhita”…
And like this it went for this extraordinarily short but intense week.
* * *
“You want to hear original Indian jokes? But I warn you, they are very particular” said Bhrigu. Recently he came back from India. He spent several months in Calcutta studying Bengali and doing some university stuff that the wise people do. Apparently he picked up also some good stuff to share with us, mortals.
“Sure, shoot” – said I. There were few of us at the table looking at him with expectation. Saragrahi, Premarnava, Syam Gopal, I think the Fins too.
“So… (But remember I’ve warned you)… There was this Indian gentleman. He came to work with a bloody nose, black eye and torn out shirt. “What happened?” his colleagues asked. “I was on the bus looking at my wife’s picture” – he answered. “And…?” “Well, I dropped the picture to the flour…” “And…?” “And there was this women and the picture fell at her feet” “So what?” “So I leaned and said to the lady: excuse me, could you lift your sari? I want to take a picture. And then I was beaten up by a whole bus”
We burst with laugh though I wasn’t sure if ladies appreciated the slight blueness of the gag.
* * *
Initiations! When the beaming, excited and smiling devotees with fresh dhotis chadars and shinny saris sat in front of Guru Maharaja, I felt tiny stab of jealousy. Nothing major, I just thought it would be nice to have it every year – to seat in front of Swami, imagining the new name which will mark you for life, waiting for him to tie tulsi mala on your neck, hoping that the fastening wont work so the intimate moment will stretch in time, or just feeling happy and honored to have his attention.
There were six initiatiates: Mathuranatha, Gopananda and Udharania were getting second initiation, Makhancor and Sammohini first and second and Lila Smriti first.
After painting tilak on Lila Smriti’s forehead (she was the first one), Swami reached for a stamp with Krishna’s name.
“In some sampradayas new initiates are marked with red-hot iron…” he paused and we laughed. “But in our love sampradaya we are not that bad” and he pressed the stamp to Lila’s forehead.
After the initiations Saragrahi and I came to Krsangi.
“Did you also had the tilak painted on you by Guru Maharaja when you were initiated?” – I asked her with mocking indignation.
“I know!” she answered, picking up the joke. “We want our tilak and stamp!”
* * *
One evening Guru Maharaja decided not to give a talk and to take some rest instead. It was decided that Tadiya will lecture us in his place. “She is a great lecturer, you will see” said Bhrigu. She protested the idea but I’m not sure that she had much to say about it – the news spread like a fire and in couple of hours everyone knew that Tadiya was going to do it. I never heard her talking… I mean, I’ve heard her talking (though not as much as I wish I’ve have), but not officially.
Immediately after she started, I knew I was going to like it. It was sadhaka speaking to sadhaka in a very simple and clear way. I admit that at times I’m getting lost in Guru Maharaja’s lectures. As he himself says “sometimes these talks are too high for some and too low for others.”
Tadiya spoke about Haridas Thakur and the prostitute that was sent to seduce him. “Haridas Thakur was an outsider. Sometimes we feel outsiders – we might seem alienated, separated from devotees, unworthy, and Haridas Thakur was a real outsider. He was Muslim, untouchable to many, he was even forbidden to enter the temple. And yet Lord Caitanya took him in his arms. So even us – we can be embraced by Him.”
She inserted also some personal stuff about jealousy. “Some, like Krsnangi, may go to Madhuvan and on the first day they eat ice cream with Guru Maharaja and listen to his lecture, or actually doing both simultaneously, and some, like me, may see him briefly only after three weeks of being there” she laughed and we all laughed. “But we should think like this – I will stand up in front of Guru or Vaisnavas with an open hands, begging them to fill it with their mercy. And even if they don’t give us anything, we will still stand and wait, forever. And if they do, we will take the nectar and distribute it to others”.
There was something very simple, moving and deep in that, especially that I myself struggle with this kind of jealousy. I liked it very much. Tadiya is such a sweet devotee.
She ended with a saying, I wrote down in my diary:
“Every sinner has a future and every saint has a past”.
* * *
Late evening.
“Premarnava, what you say about some nice prajalpa?” I said mischievously. “Let’s visit the guys”. By “guys” I meant Syam Gopal, Gokulacandra and Radha Caran living in the room next to ours.
“Why not?” said Prema. So I went quickly to tell Saragrahi that we are having the “guys night out”, told her good night and left.
“The guys” were still up. We made ourselves comfortable.
“What’s up? Discussing something interesting?” we asked.
And then, though we were (or at least I did) seriously trying to have some mundane discussion, we were ending up with krsna-katha. It was transcendentally freaking.
Let’s say I was saying “The centralized political power and the concentration of capital are main sources of problems…” and in about a minute we were like “And then I became pujari and it was awesome” Or “You wanna hear a ghost story?” and after few moments we were “Imagine that we are living in this unlimited, giant universe, and beyond it there is Goloka with all those free and happy devotees”. Something like that. In the end we realized that we are stuck with Krishna for that evening. It was kind of mystical and also kind of funny.
* * *
“You wanna help me in the kitchen tomorrow?” Bhrigu asked Saragrahi and me. He said it with a big smile of a sankirtan devotee trying to sell Bhagavad Gita to a rich fat businessmen.
“I thought that Kamalaksa and Krsangi are helping you” – Saragrahi said. “But yes, we would love to.”
“They might come too, but Kamalaksa isn’t too happy with this kitchen” he answered.
“Ok then, tomorrow we come” – I said.
Next day we came straight after the Guru Maharaja’s class. Without moving his eyes from the pot in which he was stirring something heatedly, he said with a serious, slightly menacing voice: “Shoes”. We looked at the dirty, muddy, cold flour, but we didn’t dare to say anything. The shoes had to stay outside.
“Kalpataru, you cut the cucumbers for raita. Saragrahi, prepare the eggplant”. The orders were issued. Little bit nervous we went to assemble items for our chores. Since Saragrahi used the equipment for cutting the cucumbers before, we swapped our duties (after asking the head chef for permission of course).
“If I knew I was going to see the “other” Bhrigu, I wouldn’t volunteer for this” – Saragrahi mumbled to me in Polish.
I decided to start a conversation. I looked at the eggplants I was cutting.
“You are going to deep-fry them?” I asked casually.
“Yhmm” – he answered. I took it for a “yes”.
“Do you know the technique to prevent them for getting soaked with oil?” The discussion about culinary secrets will definitely change the atmosphere, I thought.
Bhrigu looked at me sternly.
“I like them soaked with oil” he said and return to stirring.
Aaaaurghhh… I couldn’t stand it any longer. I took a bowl of puris dough and emptied it on Bhrigu’s head…
Ok, I didn’t. But I would if Krsangi didn’t choose that moment to join us.
“I’m here to entertain you” she said with a smile and opened her notebook. “Let’s go trough my notes from Guru Maharaja’s lecture”. And it was entertaining. Bhrigu was cooking all morning so he didn’t come to the class. Step by step we retraced for him the points made by Swami.
Actually the lecture was amazing. I mean at first I was completely lost. The quantum physics is a bit too much for me, I’m more an artist then a scientist, and after half an hour I started to switch off my brain, but then Guru Maharaja started to talk about Govardhana puja. I have to admit, that since I’ve heard that story for about three hundred fifty times, I thought that I might get bored, but… I wasn’t.
Swami started slowly to warm up. He was jumping to different side stories, like a skillful swimmer, gesturing, making faces, laughing, making philosophical points, quoting sastras, joking.
Sitting there, listening about cowherd boys going home with the gifts given to Krishna by demigods, and then boys telling their parents where they got all the stuff from (“There was this guy with four heads, and the other one, covered with eyes, making commotions with his hands, and also…”), I knew and I felt that Guru Maharaja is talking about actual events, not just some stories from old, moldy books. He talked about it with such an enthusiasm, that I could almost physically feel like my deep-rooted agnosticism and skepticism are withering away. It was like taking deep breaths after bobbing up from the ocean. I loved it.
So eventually Bhrigu relaxed so much that even my unshapely, weird puris didn’t freak him out, and for few hours four of us shared life stories, jokes, and more or less spiritual realizations.
* * *
There were these two girls who came to the festival. They were students, slept in the car, and seemed to be kind of interested.
After one of the morning lectures, Guru Maharaja looked seriously at one of them.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
Of course the girl was little bit nervous. I would be.
“I’m not a devotee, I just wanted to see what is all these about” – she answered soberly.
Guru Maharaja looked at her for a moment.
“I know you” he said.
That was unusual. Where did Swami knew her from?
“I saw you in a dream, before I came here” – he said. All eyes in the room opened widely. And Guru Maharaja left, without explaining further.
Couple of days later I sat next to the other of the two girls.
“So what’s your story” I asked. “How did you know about this festival?”
“I didn’t” – she said. “I just heard about the Siva temple being in this area and I stumbled on this retreat”
Wow, I thought to myself, talk about a good luck.
“But I’m glad I got here” the girl continued.
“How come?”
“Well, I was looking for Siva temple, because I decided that this year I will finally choose my spiritual path. I thought that Siva was God, but here I’ve found out that he is just the best devotee of God, Krishna, so, I’m just happy to find it out, before I went the wrong way”.
I looked at her with amazement and awe.
* * *
So here it is. I don’t think you can even call it a story. Just few scraps taken from a middle of the book. There could be more. After all a week is a reasonable amount of time. “Ulysses” has hundreds, hundreds of pages and takes place only during one day.
So I could mention the bonfire and the dread I felt when we sent burning Chinese lampions to the sky over the seriously flammable forest. Or the techno song we created with Premarnava talking about “spiritual darlings”. Or Gaura-arati kirtan I led and felt like a proper devotee, even though I messed up the tune and almost flee the temple room in embarrassment. Or at the same kirtan, how moving it was to see Krsangi jumping higher then anyone else. Or talking with Syam Gopal about personal stuff and his book. Or the journey back home in company of Premarnava and Nityangi, considering it to be a merciful continuation of the festival. Or Guru Maharaja talking very affectionately to Mathuranatha during initiation, mentioning again and again “He showed such an enthusiasm, such an enthusiasm, such an enthusiasm”.
It was a beautiful festival.
