How I Came to Krishna Consciousness

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Devotees: Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: It’s a great honor and privilege and pleasure to be with you all today in this beautiful temple filled with so many beautiful devotees. Today, I thought to discuss how I was fortunate enough to meet Srila Prabhupada. Among us, there are devotees who were born in Krishna consciousness, and Srila Prabhupada is presented to them from the very beginning, but there are many of us who are not so lucky, and for us, it might have been quite an arduous journey to come to Srila Prabhupada. And so, Srila Prabhupada is not someone that we take for granted.

In my case, from an early age, I guess you could say I was looking for perfection, and as I matured, my concept of perfection changed. But ultimately, I came to the point where I realized that to make progress, I needed a guru, and then my focus became how to find my guru. At the time, I was a student at Brandeis University near Boston, and the university itself, I ended up in the department of psychology, and the chairman of the department was Abraham Maslow. He had a sort of different approach.

He said that generally, psychology formed in two divisions. One was called behaviorism, which studied stimulus and response in animals, and the other was based on psychoanalysis, which you could say studied diseased people. So, Maslow’s idea was that instead of studying rats or diseased people, he would study healthy people, and he found that they had certain characteristics in common. They had what he called peak experiences, which was the sort of experience of oneness, and he had a whole theory. And so, the department invited many speakers who were gurus, yogis, swamis, and so one by one, I started to meet them.

I had one professor who had been to India, and back then, not many people from America had been to India. But anyway, he invited him and he gave a two-part presentation. There was morning, and then a lunch break, and then evening. So, during the lunch break, I asked my professor, “I want to meet this speaker.” And he said, “Why do you want to meet him?” I said, “Well, I’m looking for a guru, I want to see if he might be my guru.” And my professor said, “Oh, he doesn’t accept disciples.” And I thought, Well, he has knowledge that can actually help people, why should he not accept disciples? Then he said, “He doesn’t even touch money.” So, I thought, He is not my perfect master.

So then, there was a yogi who came to the campus, and I don’t remember all that he said, but one thing I remember very vividly is he said that by the practice of yoga, you can gain mastery over your involuntary muscles. And so, to evacuate, you can command, “Ascending colon advance, transverse colon advance, descending colon advance, rectum release.” So, I thought that was pretty interesting, but I didn’t quite see how it would bring me to the perfection of life. But I was open, I wanted to pursue it further.

So, his ashram was in New York, so I asked if I could accompany him in the car to the airport, but they said no, his car was full, but I could accompany some of his students to the airport. I said, “Okay.”  So, I got in the car and they were talking about all the foods they missed since joining the ashram, and I thought, Wow, they were just with their guru, they heard their guru speak, and they are thinking about all the foods they missed since they joined the ashram. And they mentioned pizza. In Krishna consciousness, we have pizza also, but I was thinking, It doesn’t seem right, but they are just students, I can’t really judge from the students, but let me see the master.

So, we got to the airport and there was the Swami, really the picture of Indian spirituality with long flowing hair, and beard, and long flowing robes, and a beatific twinkle in his eye, and he was very warmly and tightly embracing one of his lady followers. And I thought, He is not my perfect master.

So then, I heard about a Zen master who was certified by another certified Zen master in Japan, and he was offering a three-day retreat. So, I drove to Rochester. So, the first exercise I remember is all the students were lined up along the wall facing the wall, and they had to sit very straight, and they were given some riddle or koan to meditate on. A famous one is what is the sound of one hand clapping. And the Zen master would walk around the room with a stick in his hand, and if he saw that one of the students was wavering in his meditation, he would hit him on the shoulder with the stick.

So, I gave it a try, I was frankly a little worried that I might get hit by the stick, but I gave it my best. But again, the students seemed pretty morose, they didn’t seem happy. But again, I thought, Well, they are just the students, I can’t necessarily judge, I have to see the master. So, there was a lunch break, and they had benches. And so, one of the students was sort of complaining to the master about the master getting angry at him, and the master said, “Actually, it’s true, I lost my temper, I shouldn’t have lost my temper.” But again, I thought, That’s part of Zen that the enlightened souls appear like ordinary people. Maybe that’s part of it.

But overall, I wasn’t convinced, but I also didn’t rule out the possibility. So then, a little later, the same Zen master was invited to MIT, and he gave a talk there, and one of the members of the audience asked him about Vedanta, and he replied, “I have enough trouble keeping up with Zen, why are you asking me about Vedanta?” So, I thought, He is not my perfect master.

There were many, I’ll just come to one more. So, this man was actually a professor at Antioch University in Ohio, a psychology professor, but he was supposed to be enlightened, and I thought, Well, try him. I was trying anyone and everyone. So, I got to the campus Friday afternoon, and I went to his office, and his secretary was in the office, and I said I wanted to meet the professor. So, she said, “He is out playing golf.” And I looked like ‘He is out playing golf?’ I didn’t say anything, but from my expression, she could see. And then she said, “That’s his Zen.” And I thought, He is not my perfect master.

But I had gone all the way, so I thought, I had to do something. So, I went to the student union, and there the students had told me that some yogi had recently come, I still haven’t figured out who it is, the last syllables of his name were “ananda” but there are many “anandas”. But he said, “The guru is in your heart, sitting on the lotus of your heart, and he can actually speak to you.” And that was the first time anyone had said anything about the divine being personal, and that really attracted me. So, I went back and someone gave me a place to stay in the dorm. And I was thinking of that, Wow, the guru or God is sitting on the lotus of your heart and he can speak to you.

So, anyway, one after the other, there were others, many others, but ultimately, I sort of gave up hope because I tried so many and I was disappointed in every case. And I had also gotten the idea somewhere that you don’t actually choose your guru but your guru is already there, and you just have to find him. And then I even had a vague mental image of my guru, and he didn’t have hair, and all the swamis and yogis had long hair. So, I thought, I’m never going to find this person, where am I going to find this person? So, I basically gave up hope.

So then, one evening, I had some friends over to my apartment, I was already vegetarian so we had pasta and soup and salad, and then afterwards, we were going to go to a movie at Harvard Square. So, I think that day, I had seen a poster on campus, “Lecture on Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami.” But by then, I was so hopeless that I was like, “I just can’t keep going on like this.” So, after dinner, I thought of that poster, and there was something inside of me that was forcing me, “You must go.” So, I told my friends and, “Oh no, we already had a plan, we are going to the movie.” And I didn’t want to upset anyone, I wanted to please everyone, so I tried to go along.

But again, it came in my heart so strongly, “You must go to this lecture.” So, I brought it up again, and again, sort of grumbling and complaining. Okay, I’ll try to go along. And then again, it came up, it was so strong, I just couldn’t resist, I had to go. And one lady friend in particular was very upset, and she said, I mean, I’m saying it more subdued, but she said, “Why can’t you be like a normal person? Why do you always have to be running after these swamis and yogis?” And I also, with great emotion, said, “Okay, this will be the last one I ever go to.” And so, it was.

So, because of all this argument and discussion, we got there late, and Srila Prabhupada and the devotees were on the stage, and students were in the auditorium, and they were just beginning the last kirtan. And now I know it was Satsvarupa Maharaja who was leading the kirtan, and it was a nice auditorium, it had a brick interior but sort of finished brick, and I mean, the kirtan was just reverberating off the walls, it was fantastic.

So, one by one, the students were jumping out of their seats and climbing up on the stage and joining the kirtan. And so, I stood up and my friends were on one side, and the other friends on the other side, and I thought, If I were to do this, it would probably be the end. So, I just stood up and I was sort of swaying and dancing in place, although I wished I could have jumped up like the others. And then at the end, it must have been Satsvarupa that said, “If any of the students have a car and are driving to Boston or Harvard Square, the devotees need a lift.” So, I thought, I could do that. That’s what I said, “We’ll go to the late show.”

So, I went out to the lobby, the devotees were in the lobby. And the first devotee I met, first devotee who ever actually spoke to me personally was Bharadvaja prabhu, and he was so high on Krishna consciousness, he was just bubbling over and talking about, I don’t know why, when Arjuna saw the universal form of Krishna, it was more brilliant than thousands of suns, and he was trembling. And then he asked Him to turn, then He showed His four-handed form and His original form of Krishna, and it was like, wow! It was amazing.

So, I said, “I have a car.” I had a red Rambler Station wagon. I said, “I’m going to Harvard Square and I can take the devotees.” So, they all piled in. I was the driver, and then there was that lady friend, and then there was Jahnava, who at one stage lived here, I don’t know if she still does. And then in the back, there were different devotees and my friends, and then way in the back, there was my best friend Gary and Satsvarupa Maharaja. And so, my friend was saying how everything is void, and Satsvarupa was saying there is no void in the creation of God.

And I’ve been reading different books, and I thought this is silly for them to be arguing. So, I turned around and I pronounced the final conclusion, “It is not void and it is not not void, but to give it a name, we call it the void.” Well, that brilliant gem of wisdom did not stop their argument or discussion, so I thought, Well, let me ask what I’m concerned about.

So, I brought up Zen to Jahnava, and she said that this world is like a movie being projected on a screen, it’s not real, but if you withdraw your consciousness from that movie, you’ll find there is a beam of light, but if you go beyond the beam of light, you’ll find there is a bulb, and beyond the bulb, there is a projectionist. And I thought, Wow, this is amazing, this is a better explanation of Zen than any I’d ever heard, and it went way beyond Zen.

So, I had read a book called Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda. So, I asked her about Yogananda, and she said, “Oh, Yogananda, he is just a shopkeeper. Whatever you want, he keeps it in stock. You want yoga, he has yoga. You want this, he has that.” Wow, she is really powerful. And then she said, “And he doesn’t even know who Mahatma Gandhi is. At his ashram, there is a shrine to Mahatma Gandhi as a worker for world peace. He wasn’t a worker for world peace, he was a worker for India’s political independence. He doesn’t even know who Gandhi is.” I thought, Wow, she is really powerful. But I thought, This power can’t just be coming from her, she is just a young girl. This power must be coming from somewhere else. And I deduced it must be coming from the guru, so I was really interested.

So, I got to Harvard Square and I let the devotees out, and then I realized, “Oh my God, I don’t know how to get in touch with them.” So, I parked the car and jumped out and I ran after the devotees, and the first one I caught up to was the one who was walking the slowest, named Patita Pavana. He is in the San Francisco area now. And they were all in such a high state of consciousness, so he was saying, “Look at all these people, they are like sleepwalkers, they don’t even know who they are or where they are going.” And I thought, Wow, these people are amazing.

And I was just captivated, and then suddenly, I heard screeching of horns and I realized, “Oh my God, I parked the car in the roundabout and all the traffic is backed up.” So, “I want to come to the temple. Quickly, can you give me the address? Can you give me the phone number?” So, he gave it to me, and the next night, I went because that was Srila Prabhupada’s program. Every alternate night, he would speak at the temple, and every alternate night, outside, usually at a university.

So, I went and it was a little hard for me to understand his accent, but I did hear him say that out of many thousands of people, one will seek perfection, and I thought, That’s me, he is talking about me. And then at the end, he asked for questions, so I asked the question that was really burning within me, and I said, “There are so many swamis and yogis and each one says that his method is the best. So, how do I know which is actually the best?” And Srila Prabhupada replied very intelligently. He said, “What is your goal?” Because I was asking what is the best means, but he asked a more fundamental question: what is the end?

He said, “What is your goal? Do you want to serve God, or do you want to become God?” And he said, “If you want to become God, that means you are not God now. So, how can not God become God?” And then he said, “God is God. He is always God, He doesn’t have to become God by yoga or meditation.” He said, “If you sow the seed of service to God and water it by chanting, then God will give you all the sunlight and all the favorable conditions to make it grow.” He said, “God is in your heart and He is there to help you if you want to serve Him. But if you want to become God, why should God help the competition?” So, he said, “You can become godly, but you can’t become God.”

Now, at that time, I just had a distinct feeling or impression that Srila Prabhupada was seeing straight through me, past the walls of the temple, down the road, into my apartment, into my bathroom, where I had engraved in ornate lettering, colored letters in my own hand, a sign which I had hung on the wall, and the sign said: “You are God.” In case I forgot, I had the sign there to remind me. So, I just felt he was looking right at that sign, he knew everything about me.

So, he said, “So, what do you think? Do you want to serve God, or do you want to become God?” So, by then, I got the idea that I couldn’t become God, but I also knew that he knew everything and I couldn’t hide anything from him. So, I started, I said, “I want to serve God, but actually, I realized I wanted to become God.” And he said, “Yes.” So then, I knew I had found my perfect master, and I bowed my head to the floor in obeisance and in surrender.

And that’s how I’d like to remember it. And that’s true, but on a little more careful introspection, I realized that something else was going on, which is that I felt that I had been exposed in front of everyone in the room for this ignominious desire to become God. And actually, I was afraid that if I brought my head up from my obeisance, the whole room, they might all be looking at me, glaring at me, “He wanted to become God, he wanted to become God.” So, I kept my head down. But then I heard sounds that indicated that food was being served, and it seemed there was a pretty light mood in the temple room, and so I thought it’s safe to come up. And I looked around and everyone was just happy and smiling, no one was glaring at me. And I thought, This is it, I found my perfect master.

There are many details. I would come every day, but I think for the sake of time, I’ll proceed to almost the end of Srila Prabhupada’s visit.

So, one day, I came to the temple, I was coming every day, and the devotees were sort of scurrying around, and I said, “What’s happening?” And they said, “Srila Prabhupada is leaving for Columbus.” “He is leaving? I didn’t realize that there were other centers, I just thought Prabhupada would always be there.” He said, “Do you want to come to the airport?” I said yes.

So, I went with them to the airport, and at the airport, almost all the devotees were crying. And so, there was one lady devotee there, and I think she was maybe crying more than anyone, named Arundhuti. So, I asked her, “Why is everyone crying?” So, she said that Srila Prabhupada said that on the absolute platform, meeting and separation are the same, both are occasions of ecstasy. And I thought philosophically, that was a perfect answer, but still, some doubt remained, whether it was practical. And that doubt remained.

But then one day, we were doing hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana in front of a subway station in Boston, and suddenly, I felt Srila Prabhupada’s presence descend upon me in a very tangible and palpable way. And it’s like he was there, I just knew he was there. And then I thought, It’s true, it’s true, meeting and separation are the same in the sense that there is no separation necessarily.

So, from then on, my goal was to bring people to Srila Prabhupada, that was what I wanted to do. And even in India, it was the same. And then, when Srila Prabhupada left, it became a little different, but I did think of that instruction, and I do have faith that even now people can experience Srila Prabhupada’s presence. I think everyone to some extent is experiencing Srila Prabhupada’s presence. By chanting the holy names, by reading his books, distributing his books, by serving his devotees, serving his mission, we can experience his presence, he will manifest himself to us.

There was one small incident. It was a program at one of the universities and it was wonderful, but at the end, there was kirtan. And somehow in that kirtan, there wasn’t a stage like in Brandeis, but there was the end of the hall and Prabhupada was on the dais, and the devotees were dancing in a circle. There was an open area, and then there were the seats where the students and professors were sitting. And as I was dancing in that circle, my heart just filled with love. I was looking at the people in the room and I was just feeling so much love for all those people. And then I felt that feeling of love expand beyond the walls of the classroom, out across the country to California, across the pacific, and then in the sky.

So afterwards, I was just so overwhelmed. I’ve never really come up to Srila Prabhupada, but I would be in the audience and I would allow myself one question after every lecture. I was so overcome I just came right up to him and I said, “Prabhupada, this chanting is wonderful.” And he looked at me, he was a little elevated, and he started to chuckle, his whole body was heaving. I knew he wasn’t laughing at me, I knew it was ecstasy, that he was feeling ecstasy. And he just looked at me with so much compassion and love, and he just said, “Thank you very much.”

So, Hare Krishna. So, are there any questions or comments? Yes?

Devotee: Thank you, Maharaja. I was here at the beginning. Did you mention, when did you first feel this urge to seek a spiritual master? In college or high school, or grade school?

Giriraj Swami: Well, actually, from the age of eight, I got some inkling that I was meant for some higher purpose. It would probably sound a bit silly if I said it. But yeah, I was in third grade and I was walking home from school, and there was a sort of busy road, I had to cross a fairly busy road. But anyway, somehow, just looking in the distance, I felt like I had some mission.

And in high school, I wanted to do good, but at that stage, I thought by becoming a doctor. And then in college, I found that there were people who were physically healthy but mentally tortured, and I could see that sometimes that mental agony was even more painful than physical ailment, so then I thought to become a psychologist. But then in the psychology department, although it was really an extraordinary department, and through them, I met Srila Prabhupada, but I saw they also were bickering over the budget and appointments and different things like ordinary people.

And professor Maslow, and I really do give him credit, he was very honest, but he described how one day, he was having different symptoms and he didn’t know what they were, so he called one of his friends, a colleague, and he said, “What are these symptoms?” He said, “Oh, you are having an anxiety attack.” And he said he’d written chapters and books about anxiety attacks but when he was having one, he couldn’t recognize it. So, somehow, that all together led me to believe that this wasn’t the answer. And so, then I guess I started to look for a guru.

Yes?

Devotee: You mentioned a few devotee names, who was the last one you mentioned?

Giriraj Swami: Patita Pavana. There is another Patita Pavana, Patita Udharan, but this is not the Patita Udharan, this is just Patita Pavana and he is in the Bay Area, San Francisco.

Yes?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:45:25].

Giriraj Swami: Sorry?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:45:28].

Giriraj Swami: No, that was before, this was 95 Glenville Avenue.

Devotee: 95?

Giriraj Swami: 95 Glenville Avenue. It was a small storefront.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:45:41].

Giriraj Swami: Sorry?

Devotee: It doesn’t exist anymore.

Giriraj Swami: No, I visited it two years ago.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:45:55].

Giriraj Swami: Maybe in the last two years something happened, but I visited it and they had heard that it was a Hare Krishna temple and they took me on a tour, and I explained what was where, and they were very appreciative and interested.

Yes? One last question.

Devotee: I was just wondering, Maharaja, what did you do with that sign that says “You are God"?

Giriraj Swami: I really don’t remember, but I’m sure I took it off the wall. After that, I don’t know.

All right. So, as Mukhya Prabhu, Mataji said, I will be speaking Saturday morning, and then again Saturday evening, and then again Sunday at this time, next Sunday. But it’s really very enlivening to see so many both familiar faces and new faces. But it really is remarkable what Srila Prabhupada did to establish Krishna consciousness, now it’s just expanding and expanding and expanding. All right, so is there a master of ceremonies, or no? That would be you.  Jaya!

All right, Hare Krishna.