Email from Padmapani

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Tribhuvanath das and Padmapani das in Bombay, 1978

Dear Sriman Patita Pavan Prabhu,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you VERY MUCH for your kind reply. So nice to hear from you. Kindly accept my apologies for the delay, but I just discovered your message. (I normally use another e-mail address, so don’t check this one very often, not expecting too much mail here.)

Nonetheless, it was TRULY GREAT to hear from you again. Thanks so much. I’m very happy to have made contact with you again after all these years. I always wanted you to know how deeply touched I was by your kindness and selfless service so many years ago. After I met you, things improved, I teamed up with Tribhuvanatha Prabhu and went to the Middle East for five years, etc. Of course, I’m such a lowly creature that everything I try to do for Srila Prabhupada is so full of faults that it’s not even to be considered service. My only genuine hope in hell is “hope against hope,” and the mercy of great souls like your good self upon my ever-fallen head.

Bhakta Bob

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Pavan’s Press is proud to present our first Guest Editorial From Bhakta Bob.

Editor’s note: Ever notice how all these short-lived and sentimental devotee newsletters usually feature this highly-idealistic just-shaved-up semi-brahmachary writing for them named Bhakta Bob? I mean like, where are all the acharyas? Have they run out of ink?

Maybe Bhakta Bob is just some composite personality because his stuff appears here, there, everywhere. He’s the guy the “acharyas” convince into writing inspired yet basic stuff, inspiring stuff that makes your eyes wet, but from which you practically learn very little. And even though Bhakta Bob has had a lot of experience in writing cutsie copy, a lot of Bhakta Bob’s quasi-ISKCON-stuff seems to rest in the mundane. Truly. Does anyone remember those two Latin words Prabhupada used to separate the gurus from the posers: “bona fide”? Did anyone read “I Love Riding Around on My Bicycle” by Bhakta Bob Somebody on one of those “official” sites of ISKCON?

Thus spake the old curmudgeon

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Rants, raves and rambles about the god of sorrow…

That dangblasted Old Curmudgeon who is me has just embarked on his third “Saturn Cycle,” the official entrance into old age. According to most people who follow “The Astrology of the Hindus,” a Saturnian time of planetary involvement, especially Sade Sati Number Three, is generally described thusly: #@%^&*/><@! .

The Grateful Dead: Garcia and the Ganges

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More on Motorcycle Yoga…

Garcia and the Ganges

One of the most interesting reactions to the book Motorcycle Yoga came from long-time Grateful Dead member Bobby Weir. Bobby called me from a journey into Mexico to discuss his appreciation of my words. Bobby told me about the death of Jerry Garcia, whom he called his big brother. When Jerry died, his family wanted to bury him in the cemetery of an Episcopal Church in ritzy Tiburon, California. By some “miracle” Bobby insisted on Jerry being cremated and his ashes submerged in the Ganges. He told me about how Jerry Garcia’s remains were soon submerged in the mighty Mandakini, so famous for her ability to deliver souls as Shri Patita Pavani. You see, Bob went to Rishikesh with the ashes of Jerry Garcia.

Chanakya Niti-shastra

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Shri Chanakya Niti-Shastra
Chapter one, verses 5, 6, & 7

1.5: A false friend, an insolent servant, and living with a poisonous serpent in the house are nothing but death.

Commentary: He who lays his trust in a wicked circle of companions is as foolish as that man from Kerala who died after a month in a cage with cobras while trying to get his name into the Guinness Book of World Records. A man is judged by his company, just as a guru is judged by the quality of his disciples, or parents by their offspring. (Chanakya has given us this shloka from Brihaspati Niti-sara {GP 1.108.25}.)

Light of the Stars

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The Divine Stellar Configurations in the Horoscope of:
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

by Srimati Abhaya Mudra devi dasi

From the Editor: Prabhupada came into my life through an article in Fact Magazine just after His Divine Grace came to New York, in ’66. However, I first met Shrila Prabhupada face to face in the winter of ’68 in Santa Fe. At the time, the Santa Fe center on 411 West Water Street was the newest ISKCON temple. By Nov. of 1968, I had already read about Prabhupada in ‘66, had chanted in Tompkins Square Park in ‘67, attended Rathayatra in San Francisco in ‘68, and now I found myself sitting before His Divine Grace. It was late in the year, the deep winter, and the first question I posed to my spiritual master was, “Do you like astrology?” Shrila Prabhupada smiled at me very, very broadly and said, “Oh. So you like astrology?” Then he pointed his finger right at me. Feeling that His Divine Grace was urging me into deeper conversation, I continued, “What is your birthday?” He beamed. “Sept. 1st, 1896,” he replied with great satisfaction. His look was a dare, saying, “Go ahead, have a look at your Guru’s chart. See the exalted stars of your Guru Maharaja.” Of course, Shrila Prabhupada would never talk in this way, but I must say that his look said it all. So I smiled for the first time in his presence and asked, “What time?”

His Divine Grace in Krishna Culture

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The latest catalogue from Krishna Culture arrived recently, sent from their offices in Texas. Also known as Art & Culture, this impressive catalogue is run by a disciple of an ISKCON ex-“zonal acharya” of well-known past and of dubious future. The Krishna Culture catalogue contains an interesting mix of devotional literature, spiritual paraphernalia and books written by devotees and non-devotees, some good, some terrible. Mixed in with the bona fide stuff is a not-so-well disguised potpourri of quasi-Vedic hodge-podge, new age mumbo jumbo, yoga for physical rewards, mental speculation as well as books right out of the insipid school of mayavadism.

Letter to the Prabhus

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Message to: All ISKCON devotees
From: The Editor, Pavan’s Press
Re: His Divine Grace
Dear Prabhus,
Welcome to the issue and thanks for joining me along this wonderful path of glorifying His Divine Grace Shrila Prabhupada, our divine savior. Through the mercy of the Holy Names of the Lord Shri Krishna, the Hare Krishna mahamantra, we have been united in a spiritual family that Shrila Prabhupada named the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. As was Prabhupada’s work, this Society is completely transcendental. That is, it exists beyond time and limited space, and it is entirely spiritual by the will of the pure devotee. I ask each of you dear Godbrothers and Godsisters to please accept my humble obeisances at your lotus feet. All glories to Shrila Prabhupada, the Divine Leader of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s World Sankirtan Party.

Pavan’s Press Issue V

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ALL GLORY TO SHRI GURU AND GAURANGA
PAVAN’S PRESS, Issue V

Pavan’s Press 5th Ed.,

“Letters of liberation” from the International Institute of Indology (Vishwa Vaidic Vidyasangha), an organization solely devoted to the lotus feet of:

His Divine Grace A, C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

The Krishna Conscious Internet: Why Read Pavan’s?

The internet is nothing more than an infinitesimal fraction of the potency of the Supreme Lord. Therefore, since it is Krishna’s potency, it must be employed for preaching the glories of the name, fame, activities, abode, prowess, paraphernalia and devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord. This “everything for Krishna” approach to the internet represents the teachings, as we have understood them, from the lotus lips of the greatest master of the Twentieth Century, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Indeed, it is this message of Krishna consciousness that is the brightest illumination of pure devotion to the Cause of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Simply stated, Krishna consciousness is the open door to the Kingdom of God, nay, it is the very sanatan dharma itself that leads the once-entangled individual entity to Vaishnava moksha though divya-bhagavan-seva, transcendental loving service unto the Lord of All, Shri Krishna. Indeed, this Krishna consciousness movement is the only true path back to home, back to Prabhupada, back to Vrindavana. May every user of the internet discover the Supreme Absolute Truth as taught in the Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Thanks to you all for your support of Gaudiya Vaishnava internet journalism. Written 23 Nov. 2007 corresponding to Shri Kartik Purnima, Shrila Prabhupada samvat 111.

Issue Five of Pavan’s Press contains:

Letter to the Prabhus - from the Editor regarding His Divine Grace

Krishna-Culture - Editorial: “The Krishna Culture Catalogue Must Properly Respect the Pure Devotee”

“Light of the Stars” - Smt. Abhaya Mudra devi dasi interprets the horoscope of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Chanakya Niti Shastra, 1.5-, 6, & 7 with Commentary by the Editor

The Saga of Motorcycle Yoga

Light of Bhakta Bob

One Day in the Cave Above Yamunottari

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Pavan’s Press Presents: The Worst of Vaishnava Fiction…

“One Day in the Cave Above Yamunottari”
by Swami Garamhawananda

The seasons of the rains had ended, and now pilgrims were once again trekking through the peaks and valleys of Uttaranchal. Places like Badarinath (the northernmost of Bharatanhumi’s four dhamas and sacred tapo-bhumi of the revered Sage Vyasa); Kedarnath (India’s northernmost of the twelve jyotir-lingas); Go Mukha (“the cow’s sacred mouth” from whence begins the holy Ganga); Gangottari and Yamunottari each now witnessed a steady stream of pilgrims. They were seeking solace in the holy waters of the hills and before the divine forms of the Lord. Pilgrims were praying for refuge from the travails of karma that they’d momentarily left behind in the big cities down below, where a few days earlier they’d boarded buses for the pilgrimage of a lifetime.