Oink! Whoopy! Whoop! Whoop!
AGTSP! (paoho) No Letters to the Editator today! 6.15PM. At the end of each day the monkeys from Hanuman's party would regroup and discuss the days search. We've, Buck and Brown, have been writing another novel, after "Where Wine Went Wrong". He is the manuscript so far.
Today was the first day of BhVai-NOD class. Struggle with the WebEx robot, but it was O.K. Six students in the classroom and two in New Vrndavana. We will try to put it up for your listening pleasure by tommorrow morning.
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LAST DAYS
(rev. 2011 oct 3)
Table of Kahn's Tents
I. YARD SALE
II. BRENDEN BODEEN
III. RACKET
I. YARD SALE
Plecha Ma-ha-ha was selling his house in the Trenton suburbs.
Canakhya Pandita, "One should dress his age".
Plecha had never been much of a super-star in anything. He was an Indian immigrant and had made a practical income working for the City of Trenton in the Parks and Recreation Department. However, now he was 63-years old and it was time to sell his house.
It was a two bedroom although he lived alone for the last 7-years, although, honestly, there were frequent visits from friends and relatives.
Spokesmen for the "Society for Americans of Indian Origin", he had been a little active in politics and social work programs. The "Society" regularly organized programs to cook and feed the "hungers".
Best bet was that by the sale he would make enough to live in the desert for the rest of his life.
The city was an agitation.
There were no cultured people, just dollar-driven donkeys like himself.
You couldn't see more than a few hundred feet in any direction.
He hankered for the empty desert vistas of his childhood, where one could gaze for hours as the sun painted various scenes across the limitless, uninhabited panorama.
Mostly, selling-out meant finishing money based social and political and even family relations. He didn't have much or any relation with his family. God or nature seemed to have taken care of that.
Being Indian, it was sure that he contemplated death with such calm seriousness that it would have satisfied the passion of even Albert Camus.
However, the first thing he realized was that the best gamble was that we are immortal. He always liked Socrates' last dialog, The Phaedo, with so many logical discussions of the phenomenon we all must experience, and how it leads us practically to the conclusion that the soul is immortal, just like the water can come out of a sponge.
Of course, he had read his Indian classics: Paramhamsa Yogananda, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Prabhupada, but his first consideration was that the soul is immortal.
Then the next question is, "When you sell your house, how much do you take with you?" How much of your personal relationships are actually real?
Plecha was not frightened by the prospect that possibly everyone of his personal relations was "Maya", Will o' the Whisp, magic, and that he would be left with nothing except for a little cottage in the desert, the smell of morning dew on the sagebrush, and a bowl of Peas-porridge daily.
Being an Indian he had already come to grips with that vista. It was not a surprise. At the moment of death all the friends, family, carriages, bull-dozers, bull-dogs, bread wrappers and rubber duckys have to be left behind.
Ravi's South Indian poet had sung:
aho dukham, maha dukham, dukhad dukhataram vacah,
kathayam vismrtam ratnam, harinama eva kevalam
It is sad. It is very sad. It is more sad than any sad thing, that the masses of people have rejected these jewels of Hari-nama, the Names of God, and instead, are running after pieces of broken glass".
Plecha had a "vrata", vow, to chant 16-rounds on his Japa-mala, rosary of Hindu prayer beads, every day, and he was very strict in doing it.
He was always busy, but there were times, even though maybe a little impersonal and mechanical, when he could understand that the Holy Names were actually real, and this phenomenal world was just a projection onto a bunch of clouds.
A few years alone in the desert at the end.
Prepare to go to that place which once having gone, one is no longer pushed to return.
Plecha was taking his time, but he was quiting his job and he was selling his house.
Want to tag along?
II. BRENDEN BODEEN
The "House in the Desert" was in the United State's state of Arizona. It was a piece of property only half a mile from the Colorado river. It had an interesting water system from a little canal that came from the river and an aquefer from rain water. The sage brush did lend a nice smell. Also there was a little range of mountains making a moderate sized valley around him, the Van D'nam Harry bowl. He learned a little Spanish.
Big in the valley was Brenden Bowdeen, a poet of Irish decent, who didn't speak any Spanish but had a rambling hacienda that had once belonged to Don Quixote of Santa Monica.
Plecha liked him. They discussed poetry. They tried to figure out what was poetry. Brenden was super satisfied that his books were not selling too well. It gave him much more chance to improve, and he was assured that he would become famous after he was dead anyway. That left him peace of mind to work in this life without the interference of many followers or leaders.
Canakhya Pandita, "The tall straight trees in the forest are first ones to get cut down, so best to look a little crooked in ones regular dealings".
== Preface to the Poet's Book ==
The writ'n fool took up his tool,
With a single look he broached the book.
He hoped his work to sit up high,
On a household book shelf,
That marked the sky.
Friend, I wrote this book for you,
Reading thrice or twice a year,
Something new.
You may note me as an Englishman,
Who once traveled to colonies of the,
Very, very, Great Britain's lands.
I hooked a ride on a camel back,
And returned with a scripture in my sack,
Prayers to the Goddess Radha Shyama,
Who lives in the Hindoo land of Vrindaban.
Iron shovels crave dig my grave,
But I prefer cremation on the Ganges waves.
=<>=
Plecha liked it. It had a kind of homey feel to it. It remined him of the Monkey and Piggy stories of Srimat Hanumatpresaka Swami, he had met in the New York ISKCON temple one time, posted on his web-page, www.JayaRama.us.
Bananas", he said, in response to Brenden's reading of his Preface. "Bleacher Bananas", he said again and Brenden just nodded his head in embarrassment and recognized the "dicho" of the South Dehli cricket club, "Bleacher Bananas".
"Well back to work", interjected Plecha, "We must read Srimad Bhagavatam 3.29-33 for the morning class at the Nava Vraja Mandala."
"Bho, Bho, to you", rumbled Poet Brenden, "but be easy on the demi-urge. I know those chapters. They are tough!"
"Thank you", said Plecha and started the walk back to his cottage.
III. RACKET
"What in the name of Radha-Raman is all that racket", Plecha thought? He was coming up the rise to his cabin. "What is that!??"
As he got to the top he saw that it was another neighbor, Ricky the Racket. Ricky was about 85 years old. He had been a professor of farm machinery at Cal Poly (also spelled Cow Poly by some) and was always active about the valley encouraging people to engage in gardening and orcharding. His old truck shook and wheezed as if ready to collapse at any moment, but it still ran and actually had amazing strength and consumed only bio-gas.
"Do you know how long you have to live", queeried Professor as Plecha came over the hill crest.
"No", responded Plecha, "and you?"
"I don't know but I have some strange indications in mind. I just got back from S'Barbara by the Bay and there was this strange art ex-hibition, in-hibition, pro-hibition, in the lobby of the Hearst Mining Engineering Building. I looked at it and one picture struck me. It was some boys teasing them Hindu Brach-men of yours, boys was dressed up like a women with a baby under her dress.
Was a little mighty spooky to see all that and I had to stop and look.
Then I sees a Monkey in the forefront running toward the lads, motioning, 'Don't do this! Be careful! This 'ill be the destruction of your entire dynasty!'.
Ooo, me God, such a grating experience, because I could see myself on that island as that little monkey and seeing the future and giving the warning but nobody listening seriously and then the whole island sinking in the sea just like Atlantis.
Ummf, quite a weekend.
This organization, LEXICON, has served it's purpose, the books are all over the world, now some of the members are beginning to deried the Brachmens and go against the founder's ways, but they are following his rules so no one can destroy them, so there will be a big civil war and the whole thing will be finished, and we monkeys finished along with it, so we should get ready for the esoteric journey, to Goloka."
As usual Plech could catch about half of what Professor Racket was saying. His mind also seemed to be running full of engine racket also, although quite realistic and valid also. He felt himself changing to the idea that he may not live to 12-more years as his Horoscope poached, but rather the end might be as soon as two or even one year.
"Gotta get ready," he nodded to Professor as he walked into his cabin. The Professor nodded in agreement stepping up onto his truck (which had no roof on the driver's cabinette) and shook on down the road to Roaring Camp.
Inside, Plecha pickup his beads and then went back out onto the porch. He could actually catch a glimpse of the river from here and definitely see the palm trees wind-milling in the breeze. He chanted softly because his throat was sore, but was finishing 81-Malas (rosarys) per day now and the experience was impossible to describe is straight language.
=== ApProx-mating JawPaw ===
"Zoom!"
bOOm
"Glue 'm" "Doom", spat Tom Brown.
"Plech, you're as silly as a turkey", he continued. This criticism from T. Brown was not any hair-raising experience. It was just the foreground of practical activity in the life of his cerebral lump as Plecha plowed through the Japa rounds.
"Carl Jung says," continued TB, "that only a madman has thoughts in his head, a sane man has thoughts in his heart'.
Plecha continued, trying to take it to heart, 'Hare Krsna, Hare Rama, Worship Radha, worship Shyama!
==<>==
That's enough disciplina, no? Chant your rounds, at least sixteen, but then as many more as you can, and make a systematic study of the Bhaktivedanta Library with a few good friends. (Follow SB 1.17.38 strictly). Then enjoy engaging in Sankirtana, Broadcasting the Good-news, as much as you can, according to your ability and nature!
IV. BRISKET'S BASKETS
Waxman Needle's cabin was about 1/2 an acres from Plecha's. Waxman had an ass named Brisket who had two baskets that he used to carry all kinds of stuff. He also had a scoop that he used to dig the basement for Plecha's cabin. The donkey would pull the scoop and Waxman would ride it to see that it dug in enough to get a full load of earth out on each pass. The basement was in the North-west corner of Plecha's cabin and it was full of big clay pots, split peas, rolled oats, some ghee, and many smaller pots with black pepper-corns, salt, and also a bolt of cotton stood against the wall, and so on. In his garden, Plecha was cultivating succatash: Corn, squash and peas, the Three Sisters, a balanced pro-tein. Poke a hole with a stick, put these three seeds in the same hole. Do a few rows daily and harvest them gaily.
"We never harvest in the same season we plant."
God, the Supreme Rector, ran a practical school. Never get too comfortable, this world is a transit lounge. As soon as you've learned a lesson you can advance to the next class room, and eventually catch the airplane back to Goloka, the eternal atmosphere.
Life is simple, with simple tools, taking advantage of natures gifts, contributing and benefiting from the team. Unless you develop your own individual character, how can you contribute to the team.