Everyone

I recently spoke to Peter Leggieri. The name might not mean much to most readers of Back to Godhead, but, in fact, Peter was engaged by Krishna to help establish the Krishna consciousness movement in the West.

I started planning my pilgrimage to Vrindavan and Mayapur early last summer at my home in Taiwan. As my dates were becoming fixed, Sankirtana Dasa, my friend and mentor from the Taipei temple, told me he would also be visiting Vrindavan around the same time, and we synchronized our outbound flights so we could travel together. The weeks flew by, and suddenly it was October 4 and time to meet up for a flight to Shanghai, and from there to New Delhi, arriving at 1:10 A.M. (local time) the next day.

Queen Kunti, who walked this earth some five thousand years ago, was the sister of Vasudeva, Krishna’s father. Her story is briefly told in the Bhagavata Purana, also known as the Srimad-Bhagavatam, where we find her heart-rending prayers embodying the pinnacle of Krishna conscious philosophy.

In her book Prabhupada Stories, Govinda Dasi recalls her spiritual master’s reaction when he first witnessed American boys sporting in the ocean in 1967:

Little Ahmed stretches his small hands to beg. By his side, his littler brother cries in pain and his mother hides her face in shame. Bombed out buildings give an eerie backdrop to what was previously a respectable locality. I turn the pages of the newspaper. On another page, a woman cries over the dead body of her husband.

After teaching a university seminar, I was asked questions I had myself raised when I first encountered the philosophy of Krishna consciousness: “Why is the Vedic philosophy so pessimistic? When the world offers both pleasures and pains, why does the Bhagavad-gita call the world a place of misery?”

Over my decade and a half of practicing and sharing Krishna consciousness, I have been preparing and refining the answer to these questions. Here's my short four-point answer:

I received an email from a budding, but discouraged, devotee writer. He had submitted articles to this magazine but had repeatedly received negative reviews from the editors.

“How is it possible to get an article published in BTG?” he asked.

My sweet Lord . . .

I really want to see you
Really want to be with you
Really want to see you, Lord,
but it takes so long, my Lord.

George Harrison released “My Sweet Lord,” his first solo single, in America in November 1970. Internationally, sales soon exceeded five million copies.

The queue in the front yard of the Manor (above) gradually brings people into the temple room. Before joining this line on the lawn, pilgrims walk past an outdoor exhibition of Krishna’s Vrindavan pastimes, allowing them to meditate on the pastimes as they prepare to see Krishna in the temple.