"Once in a lecture, Sripad Goswami Maharaj quoted a poem. I don't remember the author, but the theme of the poem was that we need people to specialize in impossible things. Krishna consciousness is the most impossible endeavor, so I think about this while I am doing my homework or something: 'This is in the realm of possibility, if we become accustomed to the endeavors in the impossible, going back and discharging a few things in the realm of possibility is like laundry.'"
-Kamala Krishna Prabhu

"I have to go to school and I don't want to because I'd like to stay here and chant bhajans, or clean the temple, or raise funds for the Ashram, but Gurudev wants us to get an education. Do you have any comment or any input for that desire that Gurudev has that we 'Vaisnava kids' complete our education?"
-Vaidehi Devi Dasi

"Well, Krishna says to Uddhava: 'Acharyam mam vijaniyam' 'I am non different than the Acharyya.' So we take Gurudev's words as the words of God. So if God happens to be instructing us to finish our college education, then we are going to follow that, and according to the degree to which we are really dedicated to Krishna consciousness, that process of getting a college education will be extremely easy."
-Kamala Krishna Prabhu

"I don't know if I can give the best translation but basically, the teachings of Krishna in 'Srimad Bhagavad-Gita,' Krishna consciousness, is the most supreme, hidden, confidential esoteric thing that could possibly exist in any plane of reality. It's not only directly experiencable but also a joyous endeavor. I'd say that is some sliver of what we are dealing with and according to your hankering that will be your experience."
-Kamala Krishna Prabhu

Interviews by Vaidehi Devi Dasi in California during the 21st World Tour of Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, 2004-2005.

Interview with Kamala Krishna Prabhu

     Also, please see: Interview with Divyashakti Devi Dasi

Kamala Krishna Prabhu is a very dedicated devotee at the Soquel Seva Ashram. Currently, he is a student at the University of Santa Cruz but whatever moment he gets outside of school he uses to practice Krishna consciousness. He helps out at the Ashram with whatever is needed such as cooking, collection, cleaning, preaching, etc. - all for the pleasure of His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj.

Every Wednesday, he sets up a small book table at the Farmer's Market and engages in Gaura-katha. Every morning he attends the Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita class and completely absorbs his mind in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's teachings for the entire day in order to redistribute this mercy to other students, newcomers, and devotees. Now, he will share with us his first introduction to the Krishna conscious movement and how it has changed his life.

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

Every story has to have a beginning. Most fairy tales, wonderful things, they all have some kind of ambiguous start. I was a lost college student who was trying to learn how to cook Indian food and was reading books and imitating things about chanting mantras when one day I was riding my bike on the street and happened to barely overhear something. I looked, and saw a big group of people chanting down the street. I abruptly turned my head back around and kept going as quick as I came, but yet somehow I was drawn to it. I suppressed my attraction and continued on my way, leaving the music behind as a little blip in the matrix. I couldn't accommodate its existence into my existing conception, so I just ignored it. It was like this little 'does not compute' sort of failure in my mental system. A few weeks later I was walking to class and 'randomly' overheard this conversation two people were having about how there was this Hare Krishna place downtown in Santa Cruz. I just kept walking as if I heard nothing but another little thing went off in my head telling me that it must have something to do with the people I saw. I thought, "I wonder what that's all about."

Considering my interest at that time, it seemed like something worth investigating. So one day I just decided to ride my bike around downtown and see if I could find the place. Soon enough I saw some pictures in a window of what I now know refers to Damodar eating butter, and I thought, "This must be the place." The door was locked and it looked closed so I came back a little while later when the door was open. All I really had in mind going into it was that my mother had warned me about cults in the seventies like the Moonies and the Hare Krishnas, and all of the "bad things that had happened to good people." She told me when I was young about her friend's brother in college who stole lots of money from his parents and had to be deprogrammed. So, I had these kind of thoughts in the back of my mind as I first entered into The Golden Road. I sat in the back and did my best to not attract any attention and give anybody any reason to talk to me. I looked and watched and then left. It sounded rather nice but I was not ready to talk to anybody about it because I couldn't even explain to myself why I was there, let alone talk to somebody else about what I was doing there. As I left, I did happen to see a sign on the door about an ashram so I quickly penciled down the directions and left.

That weekend, I called my friend and said, "Let's go check out this place I went to. Their food is really good." He said okay and we got our bikes and rode out to Rodeo Gulch Road in search of the Ashram. I came here for the Sunday feast, and heard Pusta Krishna Prabhu talk about how Krishna consciousness was distinct from the eight limbs of the mystic yoga system. He challenged a lot about what I knew of "Indian spirituality" and that is how I first ended up in the Ashram.

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

After that experience at the Ashram, what were your thoughts as you left and what made you come back?

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

I don't remember exactly what I was thinking as I left, but I remember liking it and wanting to come back. I think I came to the Sunday feast for the next three weeks in a row and began taking part in that. My interest was progressing for a few weeks and I came to a point where I wanted to know what the words we were singing meant. For whatever reason, I was very averse to singing words that I did not know the meaning of, so I felt like I wasn't letting myself participate. I wanted to ask someone some questions and got a few gruff, terse responses like the people I was asking questions were not happy that I was making any inquiry, so I was turned off. As that happened, in the back of my mind this little voice was telling me it was a test, but nevertheless I was discouraged.

At that time, I had gotten a job working on a farm in my hometown, so I didn't come for a while because I sort of got turned off and was doing some other things anyway. It wasn't for a month or two until I was back in Santa Cruz taking summer classes that I came back again, just because I felt like I wanted to come back. Maybe it was the prasadam that I was taking or the Holy Name I was hearing that purified me. I can't really say for certain.

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

So as you were coming to the temple, you probably heard about our Guru. Can you tell us about when you first met Srila Govinda Maharaj?

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

We can say, in one sense, that the first experience I had with him was when I first met the devotees and saw his mercy or expansion in action. I was kind of surprised by it, but for whatever reason, I didn't really think about it. At that time, I was harboring the idea that there just couldn't be gurus anymore. The whole world was so contaminated and things were so degraded that it didn't seem possible to me that there could still be these pure souls. I had read plenty of books about saints and gurus and I wasn't really doubting that they were pure souls, but I couldn't really imagine that other saints were still around. I felt like the advancement of industrial society, and the contamination therein, that had occurred over the last fifty years had probably wiped out any remaining possibility of someone retaining spiritual purity. Even when I was coming regularly and heard that Srila Gurudev was in India it didn't really register fully. I didn't have any way of going to India and wasn't planning to finish school for another few years, so I just figured that I would never meet him.

I was very averse to becoming part of anything when I didn't even have a connection with he who was making the whole thing happen, so it sort of left me disheartened. I was thinking, "Oh wow, this seems really nice but....' It didn't seem at all right to me to really get into it if I hadn't met the spiritual master. This was still at a time when I still hadn't really talked to anyone in the community. It was most likely some false ego of course, confining me to some kind of scholarly or intellectual inquiry with no personal interaction with the actual practitioners.

It was maybe a month before Srila Gurudev arrived in Soquel. It wasn't until there was some news that Srila Gurudev was coming here that I really decided to investigate this fully. I spent exponentially more time at the Ashram as his arrival approached. I went from coming on Sundays, to coming a couple of times a week, to coming most days of the week up until I was here the whole week before he got here. It was becoming more intense. I was living here for like a week before he came.

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

So then you took initiation and now you are here cooking every day, attending all of the programs every single day without fail, do you have any comments about your spiritual life now? What is Krishna consciousness to you? Is this what you have been looking for?

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

There was a phrase that I would hear when I was a little kid: "It's beyond your wildest dreams." I would say that qualifies as far as words go in answering that question. I used to do a lot of skateboarding when I was in high school and there was a major skateboard video made by my favorite skateboarder. The name of his video was 'Dying to Live.' When I saw all of these guys taking huge risks just to see if they can pull off some skateboard maneuver I was inspired (at that time). We can say they were just serving their egos by performing skateboard tricks, but I was very inspired by their dedication and all-out commitment. They showed the falls and injuries they sustained to make the movie. These guys were putting everything on the line for something that they could directly experience and that stuck a cord in me. It wasn't until I really read the 'Subjective Evolution of Consciousness' that I really felt Srila Sridhar Maharaj's conception resonate with me. When I read Srila Sridhar Maharaj proclaiming 'die to live' and throwing out an open call for the 'suicide squad' I was really attracted. Srila Sridhar Maharaj says that, according to the necessity of service, one draws remuneration. One thing I was sure about was that a bona fide spiritual path would require everything you had and then some. It really seemed to me that everything hinged on the degree to which you dedicated yourself.

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

What does your mom think about all of this?

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

Well, I'd say it was very difficult at first. My parents were very shocked and taken back. Actually, not even so much as other things I've done in my life, but this is very difficult for them. I think they were mostly worried in a materialistic sense, nervous about whether I would complete my studies at the university or whether I would continue "thinking for myself" as people like to put it.

What really came to me and enabled me to deal with this situation was the part in 'Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita,' Madhya Lila Ch.1 , when Srila Rupa Goswami is talking to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu about how difficult his circumstances are. His brother, Srila Sanatan Goswami, is having to do so many things to get out of his job of government service for the Mohammedan kings. Mahaprabhu then tells him the sloka that a woman who is having a sufficiently attractive affair will discharge her household duties flawlessly. I am very fond of that idea and try to apply it in my life. I can still remain in the university, taking care of things, but can do them that much better because I care so much more about something that has nothing to do with them. I quit operating in the duality of: "I want to be doing this but I am stuck doing that." It became one process. My homework, my time at the temple, visiting my family, etc. didn't feel like: "I'm stuck doing this and now I am stuck doing that, O I wish I didn't have to...." I got out of that and realized that the whole situation is just like mercy coming to me.

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

Actually, I also have that problem. I have to go to school and I don't want to go to school because I want to stay here and chant bhajans, or clean the temple, or raise funds for the Ashram, but Gurudev wants us to get an education. Do you have any comment or any input for that desire that Gurudev has that we "Vaisnava kids" complete our education?

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

Well, Krishna says to Uddhava: "Acharyyam mam vijaniyam," I am non-different than the Acharyya. So we take Gurudev's words as the words of God. So if God happens to be instructing us to finish our college education, then we are going to follow that, and according to the degree to which we are really dedicated to Krishna consciousness, that process of getting a college education will be extremely easy.

Once in a lecture, Sripad Goswami Maharaj quoted a poem. I don't remember the author, but the theme of the poem was that the world needs people to specialize in impossible things. Krishna consciousness is the most impossible endeavor, so I think about this while I am doing my homework or something externally dry: "This is in the realm of possibility, if we become accustomed to the endeavors in the impossible, going back and discharging a few things in the realm of possibility is routine, like laundry."

As far as I can tell, if you're really situated in some aspect of Krishna consciousness, material affairs are like going to a vending machine. A university is kind of like a soda machine. Instead of putting in some money, you put in some time. Okay, here's one quarter or one year of school. You put one in and it's like: look, do you want a Coke or a Pepsi, do you want a degree in this or in that? You push a button and then out it comes. That's actually how easy it is if we are totally dedicated, if we have uninterrupted discipline. It is just like Mahaprabhu instructing Rupa Goswami with the story about the woman who takes care of her duties and her children flawlessly because she is so attracted to her paramour love.

If we apply that to ourselves, if we are trying to pursue the Absolute, then in discharging our material duties we can be that much more precise and perfect with them. It's like trying to become invincible. If we can discharge our material duties perfectly, then there will be no threat to our endeavors into the Absolute. But if we are lob-sided or not focused and lucid in our mundane activities, then they can come and detract us and pull us away. In 'Srimad Bhagavad-Gita' it says that you can't sleep too much or sleep too little, eat too much or eat too little. But if we can be right on point and walk the really thin line, then we'll be safe. So my process has just been improving. This school year, my first as an aspiring devotee, my grades have gone up. I got straight A's except for one mark, I never got multiple A's in my whole college career before this. I can say that my taste for what happens at the university has plummeted through the floor, but Krishna consciousness will harmonize anything.

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

Do you have a message for the devotees around the world?

Kamala Krishna Prabhu:

I have to start with a disclaimer, there's really nothing I can say to help anyone but I must try to say something about the mercy I've received from Srila Gurudev. Recently I was studying a few slokas from the 'Bhagavad-Gita' and just the other day I was reading Verse 2 of Chapter 9:

raja vidya raja guhyam
pavitram idam uttamam
pratyaksavagamam dharmyam
su-sukham kartum avyayam

Certainly I can't give a proper translation of this verse and I don't know one from our books word for word. But basically, the teachings of Krishna in the 'Bhagavad-Gita,' or Krishna consciousness itself, is the most supreme, hidden, confidential, esoteric thing that could possibly exist in any plane of reality. It's not only directly experiencable but also a joyous endeavor. What could be better than that? I'd say that is some sliver of what we are dealing with and according to our hankering that will be our experience. All Glories to Srila Gurudev!

Vaidehi Devi Dasi:

Wow. Kamala Krishna Prabhu ki jaya! He's on fire.

http://california.scsmath.org

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Nabadwip
http://scsmath.com | Main Centres | What's New? | World Tours