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By mat, February 9, 2010 3:11 pm

I’ve just returned to my Himalayan retreat in Mussoorie from a wonderful short trip to Vrindavana, the earthly playground of Sri Krishna and His bhakta’s (devotees). While there I happened to meet up with Satyaraja das (Steven Rosen) a prodigious devotee writer and publisher whom I was in communication with 20 years ago when I was coordinating the music department at the Mayapur Gurukula in West Bengal four hours north of Calcutta. Somehow or other we lost contact, but I have been avidly following his progress as a prolific writer, editor, publisher and communicator of Vaishnavism and Gaudiya Vaishnava culture through his unique and brilliant biannual publication the ‘Journal of Vaishnava Studies’.

Apart from editing and publishing these brilliant compendiums by academic scholars, he’s published 22 books dealing with interfaith conversations, ‘Om Shalom’ – ‘East West Dialogue’ and with other various topical subjects such as, ‘Vegetarianism in World Religions – ‘The Reincarnation Controversy’- ‘Vedic Archeology’, as well as his well researched, readable and informative short summaries on the lives of Sri Chaitanya and other influential saints in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. In fact Satyaraja far excels other contemporary writers that deal with these fascinating subjects, not just by the vast range of pertinent topics that he covers, but also by the accessible manner with which he is able to convey complex theological and historical ideas to both students of religion, scholars and lay readers alike.

So I was excited to find out through my old friend Kiran that he was in Vrindavana on a rare visit from New York, as well as having copies of his latest books, ‘The Yoga of Kirtan’, ‘Holy Cow’ and a new edition of  ‘Journal of Vaishnava Studies’. We had a wonderful long chat over refreshments in the MVT restaurant along with our mutual friend Kiran, about all sorts of fascinating subjects, especially his timely new publication on the rapidly expanding popularity of Kirtan in the Western yoga world.

‘The Yoga of Kirtan’, ‘Conversations on the Sacred Art of Chanting’, is a collection of interviews with some of the most prominent kirtan and devotional singers in the Western World of Yoga. Satyaraja manages to skillfully direct the interviews in a format that allows the twenty one singers to tell the very personal and revealing journeys that led them to become chanters and singers of sacred sound. By telling their individual stories we get to hear all the amazing and varied ways in which spiritual seekers interact with the divine presence. Some are mature adepts in their 50’s and 60’s and a few are younger, representing a new generation of children born to parents who adopted yogic practices in the 60’s and 70’s. Due to these fascinating personal and historical anecdotes the book oozes the wonderful quality of human warmth through a revealing honesty and humility that seems to pervade and unify all the twenty one approaches expressed here.

Continue reading 'A book review of ‘The Yoga of Kirtan’ by Steven Rosen'»

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By mat, January 21, 2010 12:45 pm

Keeping in touch with the rest of the world from 6000 ft in the Himalayas with a weak internet connection is not always easy. But somehow we are managing to keep abreast of developments back home in the UK and abroad. Darren has moved Sangita Sounds Studios down to Glastonbury in the West Country and has been settling in over the last couple of months during the festive season and snowy spell you’ve been having in Europe this winter.

Here in the Himalayas we are blessed with warm sunny days as the rest of North India shivers under a dense blanket of fog stretching for thousands on miles from the far West below Kashmir, all the way to Bengal in the East.

The massive Haridwar Kumbha Mela festival only 3 hours away, has already started with the first main bathing day of Maha Sankranti on the 15th Jan. attracting millions of pilgrims. The next important bathing days are on the 15th Feb. and 15th March, which is the most important day of the three month long festival, and are on Amavasya’s (days of the dark moon). There has been a lot of tension this year from the local Govt. and police of Uttarakhand due to the fear of terrorist attacks and in providing enough power and facilities for the millions expected. Haridwara Kumba Mela is quite a different set up from the Allahabad Kumba, having it’s own set of unimaginable human logistics to contend with. I have been to 3 major Kumb’s and one Aradh Kumbh(half) and spent weeks at both of the two major locations, the other two being Nasik and Ujjain. This year I’ll probably pop in for a couple of days around the 15th March to capture some visuals on my Kodak HD Zi6 camera for our Sangita Sounds video archive.

I’ve also been making progress with my autobiographical project ‘Between Worlds’ focusing on the events of 1978 when I was still a full time member of the ‘Hare Krishna Movement’ and the dramatic sequence of events which proceeded the passing of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, the founder of Iskcon in Nov. 77 which I was also fortunate to witness. There are very few, if any personal descriptions of this important historical period involving the tricky transition of power in Iskcon and the calamities that followed in it’s wake. I’ve been sitting through the winter months here at Mussoorie in my cozy pad, reliving those events and describing what actually happened and how it affected me personally and the lives of thousands of others at the time. But the ramifications of those turbulent events are now being felt by millions throughout the world due to the vast expanse of the Krishna phenomena that was instigated and inspired by HDG. Srila Prabhupada. I hope to do justice and bear witness to the truth and reality as seen and experienced by me and share that with anyone who is interested in the story of Iskcon, social religious history and a personalised account of how and why it happened and what it all possibly means for us 2010 and beyond.

That’s all for now folks. Must dash.

Peace & Love

Mathura das

Image Credit : Dirk Hartung

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By mat, November 19, 2009 12:32 pm

I’ve been back in India for a month now, and feel I’ve just settled. Although I’ve been visiting India on a regular basis now for over thirty years, and was just here back in May, I still experience mild forms of culture shock every time I return. Each culture (East/West) is so powerfully absorbing, that spending a few months in either completely engulfs one’s being and it always takes some time to readjust to the other world. And they are like other worlds, both mysteriously cohabiting this planet together but running on very different energetic frequencies, historical backgrounds, seasonal patterns, population densities etc. etc.. The list could go on and on, East is East & West is West and all that. But as the years roll by, the cultures are definitely moving closer together despite my own perpetual culture shock syndrome. In India the pace of modernization is so rampant and upwardly mobile that it makes the West (UK) look like a Imperial Relic, floundering through the economic crisis.

My beloved Vrindavana the holy place of Krishna’s divine sports (Lilas), just three hours south of Delhi, has become a victim to this new wave of economic prosperity sweeping over India’s middle classes. Spiritual tourism has become extremely popular these days and Vrindavana has become a convenient pilgrimage destination for city dwellers wishing to escape with their families to somewhere different for the weekend. Unfortunately the infrastructure of Vrindavana is unable to cope adequately with the massive influx of Vehicles plowing into the small town. To make it even worse, work on the roads was left unfinished during the height of the popular Kartick season, thus creating even more havoc, dust, pollution and disturbance than usual.

A new bridge is also being built across the Jamuna river right next to Keshi Ghat, and none of the public seems to know who has authorized it’s construction or why it is there. Apparently there are various parties and organisations both political and non political in the Vrindavana area, that are competing with each other to implement their various agendas and blueprints for the regeneration of the area, and some seem to have more powerful connections than the others and it looks like the more questionable parties have the upper hand at present.

Let us pray to Sri Sri Radha Govinda that some sort of sincere civic sense eventually prevails and that development in the Holy Dham can move with times without completely decimating it’s remaining charm and natural beauty in the process.

Peace & Love

Mathura das