Everyone

If one man conquers in battle
A thousand men,
And if another conquers himself,
The latter is the greatest of conquerors
– The Art of War, Sun Tzu

Chapter Five: Immersion

Two days and two nights on a dirty train and a bumpy, cramped ride on an antediluvian bus brought John and me to Vrindavan. It was past midnight, July 17, 1971. I was twenty-one.

His Excellency the High Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for coming here and participating in this ceremony, Janmashtami, the advent of Krishna. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita (4.9),

Since my youth I have been interested in the concept of expressing ideas and stories through visual arts. Often it is far more effective to convey a topic with the aid of illustrations, charts, animations, and videos than to rely exclusively on words. I served a short stint at an art school in Pittsburgh after high school, and what I learned in that semester and a half was that I never wanted to do art as a career. Art, being an expression from within, works best when it is relevant and meaningful to the artist.

While the Vedas declare in their every breath the presence of the creator in every blade of creation, the Puranas (histories) vividly portray many occasions when the creator of the universe, Sri Krishna, called Param Brahman in the Vedas, intervened in the functioning of His creation. Krishna does that by taking special forms and acting in special ways. Those special forms of the Param Brahman are called avatars.

I was born in 1970 in upstate New York and had more or less a typical American childhood - that is, until age fifteen, when I began to perceive the shallowness of it. At that time, I started to read books on philosophy and psychology and to listen more carefully to the weekly sermons at our local Baptist church. I had a lot of questions - about God, about life - but no one seemed to have the answers.

Forty-one-year-old Krishna Dasa was already feeling elated as he stood in the crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of Srila Prabhupada. It was July 7, 1973. On the order of his spiritual master, Srila Trilocanadeva Maharaja, Krishna Dasa had come to England from India in 1966 to propagate sanatana-dharma, the eternal religion of the soul's relationship of loving devotion with the Supreme Lord. He had felt alone in his quest to follow the order of his guru.

In a leafy yard in New Vrindaban, West Virginia, a large group of children is leaning forward, riveted, as award-winning storyteller Sankirtana Dasa does what he does best.

“Please help me!” he squeaks, impersonating the mouse in one of Srila Prabhupada’s favorite parables. Then he cycles through an impressive library of animal noises, as a sage turns the mouse into predator after predator so he’ll no longer be prey.

Indian thought is sometimes deemed fatalistic, holding that everything is destiny, predetermined by our past actions, and thus leaving little room for human initiative. While Indian literature is filled with diverse thoughts, some of which may be fatalistic, the bhakti literature, which is among the most influential Indian literature, offers a far more nuanced and empowering outlook on life.

As visitors to India travel north by car from Kolkata, the landscape gradually shifts from urban sprawl to pastoral farmland. High-rise housing and industrial construction sites give way to a flat horizon of villages and rice paddies. Four hours and eighty miles later, visitors enter the district of Mayapur on the banks of the Ganges River, at the point of its confluence with the Jalangi.