The Urchin

A call for awakening
The cave resounds a solemn "no"
Fingers shaking
In the darkness counting stones
A skeletal heart
For love, it reaches like tree branches
Feed it a Benjamin
Cuz hey,
That's life

The Fish's Resistance

“Without Love of Krishna whatever arrangement we make, whatever spiritual realization we gain, even mystic powers, even liberation, we are like fish trying to be happy outside of the sea. You can imagine you are happy if you have all phantasmagoric devices around you. But a fish can never find real satisfaction laying in the hot sand nor can spirit soul find satisfaction in any material arrangement. That is contrary to our eternal nature, which is to eternally be swimming in the nectar of devotion, the nectar of ecstatic Love.”
-Radhanath Swami

The ancient yogic texts of India teach that all the problems of the modern world arise from a lack of self-awareness. For example, if a fish declares himself to be an iguana and proceeds to beach himself in an attempt to live on land, he would have quite a traumatic experience. A fish belongs in water. Similarly, our life is often painful, because as spiritual beings we live in an atmosphere of matter, where we don’t belong. In a world saturated with the hot tar of anger, greed and hypocrisy, our natural, loving nature is smothered and repressed. But we have a choice. We can surpass the pollution and help others do the same. Just as the quiet lotus rises above the muck and blossoms in a gentle fit of rebellion against her habitat, we too can breach the sludge.   

This world seems to spit out new pickles daily. Massive wars are leaving countries in ruin. Colleges have driven America's youth into 1.2 trillion dollars of debt.¹ The second leading cause of death for our generation: suicide.² I'll stop here. Sorry for the gloom. But the case is clear; there is something fundamentally wrong with the world we live in. And, to cut to the crux, there's something fundamentally wrong with the way we’re living life.

Nemo, our beached friend, realizes he is indeed a fish so he flaps his dinky fins and returns to the sea. In no time he’s merrily paddling about in his natural habitat, satisfied. As soon as Nemo realized his true identity— a clownfish who belongs in the freakin’ ocean— he steadily flipped and flopped home toward his natural habitat. Similarly, we also have some self-realization to accomplish, and when we do, we’ll understand we’re not the body we live in, but a spiritual being. And as a spiritual being, we’ll realize we can't feel completely content in a non-spiritual atmosphere. Simply by understanding, and acting according to our natural loving nature, we rise above like the lotus.

This development of self awareness through loving action is called bhakti yoga. It is not a religion. It is a universal process of self realization applicable to any philosophy. How? Because the soul is not a Jew or a Muslim or a Scientologist; the soul is a part of God. Love is the nature of the Divine thus the soul is meant for loving exchange. So this love is within all of our hearts. We see it manifest in all the movies we watch, songs we hear and books we read. Bhakti yoga is the cultivation and expression of that love. It's not sentiment; it's science. The science of self realization.

Fish are aquatic beings. If Nemo’s swimming, Nemo’s happy. Souls are beings of love. If we are loving we are happy. ABC,123.

I'm not satisfied with toddling about the fishbowl of modern society. (More like one of those fish bags from a West Harrison meatball festival). But rather than becoming some poop-chucking hermit, I see it wiser for us to join together for a more natural (and less smelly) cause. Namely, love. Love is not some ethereal pixie dust like that sprinkled throughout chick flicks, but an absolute, soul-stirring power. By realizing our spiritual nature and acting on it, we can snap the levees and flood the world with the brisk water of awakening. The more self-aware we become, the more our life’s purpose is revealed. And as we slowly enter the ocean of our true calling, the dry sands of our suffering naturally dissipate. We are the future; the time is now. There's a rich, sultry aroma moving with the wind nowadays—smells like revolution.



1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/student-loan-interest-rates-rise-for-2014-2015-school-year.html" \t "_blank" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/student-loan-interest-rates-rise-for-2014-2015-school-year.html

2
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/09/suicide-mental-health-prevention-research/15276353/" \t "_blank" http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/09/suicide-mental-health-prevention-research/15276353/

Festival of the Soul

Nag Champa musk permeates the ether. Above bare heads of the enlightened hovers an ivory smoke, gently expanding to form a collective halo. A dark river of exotic faces dances along the village banks. Sublimely entranced, they approach the setting sun. Love flooding their hearts, they roar a euphonic anthem; propelling vibrant life into the approaching darkness. Shockwaves of energy pulse steadily to mridanga drum explosions. I hear a call for awakening, a paramount expression of desire– of love. This is no ordinary gathering, but a festival of the soul. A noble deity, jet black with moon-like eyes, leads the procession. He adorns a royal red chariot fit for the lord of the universe. I float comfortably in a technicolored ocean of the seekers, the desirous, the determined. Suddenly my mind rests; my heart takes the wheel and steers toward realization. How could such a foreign environment feel so familiar? This atmosphere has enraptured my heart, but how? From within I feel content, I feel satisfied. I recollect my previous life, the trials and tribulations, the stress and despondence. The only thing more tense and unrelenting than the modern world is the modern mind. How have I escaped such troubles? I feel alive, exhilarated, conscious, like an arctic plunge— I’ve deserted the Saharan sands. This was no mirage. This was no illusion. How long would my aimless trek have gone on if not for such extraordinary individuals? Out of all the cheaters and thieves who plague India's sacred soil, somehow I’ve come under the care of the devotees. As I stand, marveling the wonder of such fortune, suddenly, my trance is broken. A loving hand calls me to join the dancing— I happily oblige. The sun has set, but a brilliant light shines within us. A festival of the soul dissipates the darkness.

Love is Logical

I am now back at the ashram just outside Mumbai in which I first stayed at upon coming to India. As I sit in my same cob house that was so difficult to adjust to upon first arriving, I am amazed at how things have changed. The walls are still made of cow dung, the roof still of straw, however by the mercy of Guru and the monks whom I have had the privilege to associate with, my mentality is hardly recognizable. 

Never would I have thought that I could fall so deeply in love with a place that failed to fulfill so many of my past material desires. But if India has taught me anything, it's that real love, the kind which can change the way in which a person perceives the world, the kind which can elevate the lover to the highest imaginable state of consciousness, comes from the pure desire to please the object of affection. That so called love which is based off of the desire to have your own needs catered to can never provide lasting satisfaction. This type of feeling, despite numerous arguments by movies and tv shows is actually called lust as it is bred of selfish desire where as actual love is bred of selfless desire.

 In the Bhagavad Gita it is said, "...the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire." (BG 3.39) Lust can never lead to satisfaction because the resultant pleasure is always temporary and fleeting. How can we expect to be satisfied with something that can only give us pleasure for a limited time? Love is eternally satisfying because at any moment we can offer our hearts to the object of our affection. Despite this, most people continue let lust be the driving force of their life, blindly chasing after that which is like nectar at first but poison at last. The more one is pushed along by this lust, the more one faces deep confusion and suffering, eternally despondent as despite their increased sense pleasure, happiness seems to always elude their grasp. 

Lust is always aligned with the material world, for the means by which we attempt to satisfy our cravings are through sense objects such as wine, women, money etc.. Most of the time the more the object of our lust is sought after, the more we feel this temporary boost in fulfillment. For example, someone who buys a new Honda may feel puffed up for a few weeks driving around in his new car, where as someone who buys a Ferrari may feel puffed up for years. Love however is completely transcendental to the material world, it is always spiritual and never subject to anything material. If a small child were to pick a simple flower from a garden and give it to his mother, the mother would be much more pleased than if a stranger had given her a bouquet of flowers. What makes the difference in the level of satisfaction felt by the mother is love. Love makes all the difference. Where as both the Honda and Ferrari will break down and the sense of satisfaction will be no more for either driver, the sense of fulfillment provided by the simple exchange of the flower from child to mother will exist much longer. This is so because the happiness felt by the mother was not necessarily based off of the flower it's self but came from within. Thus it could never be taken away. Surely the flower in some short time will wilt away and die but the love which was the actual basis of the exchange may be felt for a lifetime. 

This is a very simple example, but in reality, happiness is not as complicated as the media and our minds make it out to be. If we simply develop the mentality of reaching out in compassion to others, even if inconvenient for ourselves, we immediately become freed from imprisonment by the restless flow of selfish desires which pick us up in passion and leave us in a state of misery. Through becoming situated in this mentality of compassion, our consciousness, being thus aligned with spiritual reality, may flourish and bring us to a state of being that is transcendental to the distress we have all been facing while in a materialistic state of mind. Despite the eternal satisfaction felt from pure love and despite the eternal dissatisfaction felt by lust, today we live in a world that is moving on selfish desire. Such a world is bound to suffer. 

Today we live in a world where arguably the number one business is the pentagon, an organization that exists primarily to carry out systematic attacks on other countries. How healthy is a culture which has produced enough chemical and nuclear weaponry to annihilate every living being on the planet many, many times? How sane is a society which utilizes it's greatest minds and financial resources to perfect the ability to kill others? In such a world, it is very difficult to develop a mindset that is purely focused on the well being of others as we are constantly being pressured to conform to our surroundings. However anyone who has ever made a serious contribution to this world was not afraid to be different. 

Most became successful by voraciously pursuing an idea that they had faith in despite their surroundings failing to support them. Bhakti Tirtha Swami, is one such example who rose from his Cleveland ghetto to become one of the greatest political and spiritual leaders in the world, his accomplishments are innumerable. A Princeton graduate, BT Swami has written a great number of books, many of which are used in universities and leadership organizations throughout the world. This great soul has said, " If we are too cowardly to launch ahead with love and devotion, or if we are too afraid of being different, that is most unfortunate, for the norm of this world is one of insane patterns." 

Dogs and hogs on the street in India are in constant competition within their species for food. Dogs and hogs will attack their competitors and each has the mentality of everyone for them-self. Because of their lack of sensibility they are perpetually in anxiety and fear, not knowing if they will have enough food to satisfy their hunger. Humans on the other hand have the special ability to act out of love or compassion and work together for the ultimate good. Dogs and hogs will always be in competition, lust is their nature and thus they will always suffer, humans however have the privilege to choose whether they will compete or cooperate. What a benediction! The choice to suffer or to be satisfied! Obviously because of this special boon we've received as humans it can be easily concluded that this human life is not meant for competing like the dogs and hogs but for loving exchange. And so in this life we have been given a choice, we may chose to act like the dog, we may chose to act like the hog or we can realize who we are meant to be, who in reality we are and we can become immersed in the ocean of satisfaction only accessible through this selfless service and cooperation. The choice is yours. 

A poster once hung on the wall in Harrison High School that read, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others" I always remembered that quote but I never truly understood it until I came to India. What a journey it's been and what a debt I have accumulated towards all of the people who helped along the way. To all of the compassionate souls who tolerated my doubts, frustrations, endless questions and misunderstandings I am eternally grateful and I pray to become firmly situated in a mood of humble, menial service unto those wise souls who have given me so much. By their mercy, each place that I've traveled to in India has given me a deeper understanding of reality which is the most incredible gift I could have ever hoped to receive. My Guru says that the best thing you can give someone is knowledge because ultimately all suffering is due to ignorance. Though there are still thick layers of ignorance that I will need to work through, at least now I can be sure that I am in the right classroom, with the right students and the right teachers. A huge thank you to everyone who has provided any kind of feedback on the things I've written, all responses have been very genuinely appreciated as I am in no way qualified to be disseminating any of this transcendental knowledge but by the mercy of Guru and the monks whom have been so kind, I am compelled to present my humble attempt. India, I will miss you deeply but I'm sure I will be back soon, as for America, I have a feeling the adjustment period may be a bit more rocky than previously anticipated but I'm up for the challenge. I love India and the separation will be painful but the feeling I have towards this great land is something that can never be taken from me, as heat can not be separated from fire, as a sweet scent can never be separated from a rose, as light can never be separated from the burning sun, my deep appreciation and love towards India can never be separated from me. 

This post was inspired by the cows at the Govardhan Eco Village goshala. I will miss you girls more than anything. If it wasn't for the cows and the incredibly compassionate and wise cowherd boys at the ashram, I would have made no advancement at all. Thank You

Thoughts on Love

How does one conceive of the inconceivable? Though man is limited, he has been endowed with the capacity to exchange unlimited, inconceivable energy, namely love. The essence of fire is heat, the essence of water is wetness , the essence of life is consciousness. Consciousness which reaches it's eternal climax in pure unadulterated, inconceivable love. This unwavering solace is what everyone from Beyonce to an ant is searching for. Some are simply more attuned to the soul's inherent desire than others. The soul's longing for fulfillment may manifest on the gross level in various ways. Often we see one another chasing after what we are told will give us satisfaction or pleasure by the media. Our mind is scorched and our intelligence is torn by the sick notion that material objects can fill the subtle void within. But considering the void is on the subtle level, a material object can not provide the atonement we seek. Love is absolute, complete in it's self. Wholesome. The epitome of equilibrium. Absolute harmony between two unique individuals. Unfathomable unison overflowing with warm affection. The pinnacle of existence. Love is old, love is new. Love is beginning-less, endless, eternally existent, ever tranquil. Waiting for us to acknowledge it's divine presence. Love can not be taken away, only misunderstood. Thus it is love and only love that may fill our void. Love may then expand endlessly into every corner of existence. Love is the single-most simple and powerful force in existence. It's power lies in it's simplicity. Utter submission to the will of another, surrender firmly rooted in the desire to please the object of affection is the topmost action. Thus I strive for constant engagement in such activities. 

Infinite Action

We must realize that the single most important factor in spiritual growth is our mentality. If we want something material, we attain it through  dry material means such as money or a particular service and if we want something spiritual, we can only attain it through action from a more subtle platform. If our objective is spiritual, it only makes sense that the means by which we attain that objective are also rooted in the subtle level. 

          God already has everything that you could think of to offer to him. He is the Supreme controller and enjoyer of everything that our 5 senses may come to perceive. By his energies, he manages and sanctions everything that takes place in our universe. How then can we hope to advance in spiritual consciousness simply by offering to him a flower, fruit or some type of charitable service? The answer is simple, there is one exception to God's supreme control. The one and only thing that we have which God has no control over is our free will. Anything at anytime in this world can be taken away from us in an instant, anything. Yet we will always retain the ability to think what we want to think and act based on those thoughts, regardless of our circumstances. We have been endowed with this minute sense of independence of God's will for one reason that has been established by fully enlightened spiritual masters as the entire purpose of our existence. This ability that we have to discriminate between things that we give our energy to facilitates the exchange of perfect love. If God were to force us to be affectionate towards him, there would be no real intimacy or excitement. The real deep feelings of love originate in knowing that this person is choosing to utterly give them self to you despite all other possible engagements. Despite the millions of varieties of things or people that they could give their most deep rooted, confidential energy to, they feel confident that their heart belongs intertwined with yours. 

          The reason why this love is so powerful is because when it is pure, both parties experience ever-lasting and ever-increasing feelings of union, bliss, comfort and satisfaction. The best example of this is given in the relationship of the Divine Couple, Krishna and Radharani.  Let's say Radharadi cooks Krishna a meal. If Radha sees that Krishna is enjoying the meal, because of her unalloyed devotion and pure love for him she becomes happy and smiles. Next Krishna, seeing Radharani smile becomes enchanted by her beauty and love for him so he smiles. Next, Radharani seeing her beloved Krishna smiling at her with affection becomes even more joyful and may blush and giggle, Krishna hearing His cherished Radha's sweet laughter becomes even more ecstatic... This process goes on eternally in the spiritual realm which is only pure love however here in the material world it is usually impeded by one or both of the party's eventual feeling of "I'm not enjoying enough". In pure love, this feeling never arises because pure love is selfless. It is constant consciousness of the other person, not yourself. These feelings of selfishness are eternally tied to the material platform and so if we want to make spiritual advancement we must eradicate these selfish tendencies immediately. Pure love is completely spiritual and thus acting from such a platform quickly elevates us to higher levels of consciousness. 

          It is impractical to cease all material activities as buddhists suggest. Becoming static is against the nature of the soul which is active, going against our nature leads to frustration and dismay. The opposite of poor is not no money, it is wealthy, similarly, the opposite of materialistic activity is not inactivity but is spiritual activity or activity performed in spiritual consciousness, for an eternal spiritual goal rather than a temporary material one. One man may work with the motif of acquiring money so that he may gain some illusory sense of power and control over his surroundings while another may work with the motif of acquiring money so that he may donate it to a temple, church or spiritual cause. Both can be doing the same exact work but the mentality is completely different and thus the resultant impressions left on their consciousnesses are polar opposites. Lust, being eternally unsatisfiable will leave the selfish man despondent no matter how much he gains while the man who acted with love for a spiritual objective not only generates good karma but also feels that sense of satisfaction, comfort, happiness and union with something spiritual. Because love is reciprocation, the more the man puts his heart into his work, the more he will feel these transcendental externalities of love while simultaneously purifying his consciousness.  

          If we want to make advancement in consciousness we must focus not as much on what it is were doing but more so on how much love we are doing it with. If you are not interested in advancing in consciousness you will never be happy. Basing happiness on the world conforming to your desires is insanity because the world will always move in ways that we don't want it to. Thus if happiness came from things going your way then it could only be temporary, you would be bound to suffer. This means happiness actually must come from our perception of the world around us not, the world around us, (because the world around us sucks). So whether you want to advance in spirituality or you just want to be happy, become determined to act from the heart, with love. This is ultimately the only practical way of acting as it actually benefits you in every way imaginable. Remember the science of this eternal love, making it the most powerful and unimaginably marvelous force in existence. And realize it doesn't matter how small the action is, even if it's just the offering of a flower or fruit, because the moment we do it out of pure love, it becomes infinite. 

Islands

Religion it's self is a system of beliefs,values, customs etc. regarding something or someone that is transcendental to the material creation. Yet despite this, the religious have always been quarreling about why their particular color of skin is God's favorite. However in order to truly understand spiritual truth, we must first accept the most basic yet essential fact about ourselves, that we are not these bodies but eternal, wise, and blissful spirit souls. Once we are able to give up identification with the body, we lessen our intense envy for those who are more beautiful or materialy advanced than us and we put much less focus on our material situation, realizing that home, where you belong is elsewhere. This mental health improvement allows us to begin to develop a genuine sense of compassion, and as the intensity of our material hankerings has decreased the mind can finally focus and begin to comprehend something spiritual. How can we hope to understand something spiritual while maintaining a materialistic mindset? It is in fact impossible to gain any spiritual wisdom while influenced by a materialistic standpoint. Materialism is, I want to conform the world to my desires. Because we have been endowed with free will, we can surely retain this mentality for as long as we want, however we will only find ourselves in deeper and more severe situations of suffering and confusion. With this type of mentality any spiritual wisdom heard passes through the wry filter of your mind and the message becomes distorted. Basically, you hear what you want to hear and again, we have free will so we of course can go on with our selective hearing eternally, but we will only reach lower and lower levels of consciousness until we are worse than the dog and hog. This is so because spiritual wisdom does not conform to your desires, neither does God. Thats why in this materialistic world everyone is suffering and no one can see God. God and the truths regarding him are not subject to our misconceptions and imperfect senses, they will go one existing eternally as they are, perfectly. Thus in order to perceive something spiritual you must develop a spiritual state of mind. The spiritual mindset is the opposite of a material one, spiritual mindset is realizing that since time immemorial, you have been in ignorance. You have been a slave to your senses constantly catering to their every impulsive whim whether it be food, sex, intoxication, all the while thinking yourself the controller whose sole purpose is to rearrange the world in a way that provides you with optimal enjoyment. The spiritual mindset is feeling disgust and remorse at the materialistic way of living, having foreseen the impudence and the suffering felt by yourself and others when selfishness rules over someone. The spiritual mindset is surrendering to the higher power that is within you and without you. That which connects not only everything in this world or this universe but everything in all existence known and unknown. That surrender entails giving up the designation of being "the knower" for as as long as we go through life thinking we understand everything, we leave no opportunity to actually advance towards a deeper level of understanding. By thinking we know everything we shut down that which doesn't appeal to our current frame of reference, which for most of us is very limited. Most of us live in one place for a very long time and we grow accustomed to that place and the lens from which we perceive things is very heavily influenced by that place. For example if someone lives their whole life on a secluded tropical island, they may think that the entire world is a tropical island. If you try to tell this person who's mind is only accustomed to tropical weather that there are places where it snows all the time, they will not understand. Now the person can either admit he doesn't understand and then become more educated on the reality of planet earth or he can think, "No, this person is crazy, I know what I'm talking about" and continue to live in ignorance. I think that we all live on our own little "tropical island" and I know that there is a whole world, a whole universe out there to explore full of beauty, truth, adventure and satisfaction. But in order to see whats really out there, we first must admit that our little island isn't the only thing available, that in fact there is much more to this life than meets the eye. Developing a more spiritual mentality takes a lot of patience and determination but by gradually lessening our tendency to identify with material nature and realizing arrogance is ignorance we gain access to the ocean of boundless, illuminative and eternal wisdom.