When I Met Krishna

It was 1981 and early in my senior year of high school.  I was walking out of the East Brook Mall in Willimantic, Connecticut with two friends named Steve Walton and Clyde Hall.  In my hand, I was holding a bag with Jimmy Hendrix's  "Axis Bold As Love" album in it, that I had just purchased at Music World.  I had loved Hendrix's "Are You Experienced," and had played it again and again over the summer as I delved deeply into the world of marijuana and LSD.  Though, by this time, I was burning out on drugs, so to speak,  I was still anxious to get into this next taste of Hendrix. On the cover, was a picture of Krishna's Universal Form (I had never seen it before) but with Hendrix's head super-imposed on the bodies. 

We had skipped last period and gone to the mall that only a few months before Steve had escaped from security after trying to steal a music cassette.  The security guard had grabbed him and was calling the police when Steve, a member of the football team, broke free with a snap of his wrist and ran out into the parking lot, over a stream and through the woods to get away.  Considering this, Steve was understandingly paranoid when an official looking person approached us in the parking lot just as we got to our car.  He said he was doing a survey for Yale and starting naming subject matters and asked us what we felt about them. When he got to science I said I didn't care for it because I thought their conclusions were too close-minded and excluded the possibility of a metaphysical world.

Upon hearing that, the man's eyes lit up and he presented us a glossy book entitled "Life Comes From Life." Steve immediately acted indifferent but told the man to show it to me because I was into "weird stuff" like witchcraft and out of body experiences.  Clyde and I felt drawn, though, and gazed down at the cover. I was instantly interested in its other-worldly look.  There was a picture of an elderly Indian man walking with a cane.  I immediately wanted to know what the book had to say. When the man asked us for money, Clyde and I pooled about $3 together in mostly change.  The man said thanks and walked away towards his next car.  Little did he or I know how much that two minute exchange would alter my life forever.  

Later, I would meet him in Boston.  His name was Vrajendra-nandana, a veteran book distributor.  To this day, wherever he is, I thank him for the spiritual bomb he dropped on my life that afternoon.  A few years later, I would go out to distribute books and understand the great sacrfice involved and the immense fortune that results from giving others the gift of transcendental literature.  But now, I was riding home from school in the back of Steve's car, passing a joint around, listening to Rush's 2112, and flipping through the new book with the far out paintings in it.

Both Clyde and I took turns with the book and both of us were affected.  The first thing I read when I opened it up was Srila Prabhupada saying something that sounded a little too far out for my spirtually virgin ears to comprehend.  He was explaining the logistics of how residents of the higher planets descended to earth via reincarnation to take a human form.  There is a similar statement in the Bhagavad-gita As it is, 8.3 purport,  where Srila Prabhupada explains:

      In the process of sacrifice, the living entity makes specific sacrifices to attain           specific heavenly planets and consequently reaches them.  When the merit of         sacrifice is exhausted, then the living entity descends to earth in the form of           rain, then takes on the form of grains, and the grains are eaten by man and         transformed into semen, which impregnates a woman, and thus the living             entity once again attains the human form to perform sacrifice and so repeat           the same cycle.

"Incredible," I thought. As I read on, the main thing that I noticed is how 100-percent Srila Prabhupada was convinced that Darwin was wrong.  His arguments were the best I had ever heard against the concept that life generates from dead matter.  "What's the difference between a living body and a dead body?" he asked.  The answer was that matter could not move unless it was touched by spirit.  He also pointed out the fact that when the soul leaves, the body is no longer animate.  He challenged the scientists to create life in the labratory, even a single blade of grass.  He then boldly referred to them as rascals for bluffing the innocent populace. How could something so organized as the universe and nature come into being by some accident or big bang?  His presentation was heavy, but it seemed without anger or personal animosity. 

Another factor that attracted me was that although he was totally convinced (and convincing I might add) he didn't come off as a fanatic like a Born-again Christian or something. His arguments were based in logic although he kept quoting the Vedic scriptures. He seemed to have access to some ancient knowledge that was just as relevant today as it ever was in the past.  From reading his words, I got the immediate feeling that he was the living example of this knowledge.  At the time, I was a practicing Rosicrucian to some extent and had dabbled in white witchcraft and different types of meditation.  I had been a vegetarian of sorts for a little while as well.  I had always dreamed of finding some source of ancient knowledge that would delve deeply into all my questions about life and transform me into some mystical wizard or something living in an enchanted forest.  Perhaps this was it.  

Clyde liked the book as well; but of everyone my brother got into it the most. He started adopting the philosophy immediately and we would talk about it often.  Soon other books started to appear.  My friend Mike found a softback Gita in an abanoned gym locker.  Another friend gave me a copy of "Search for Liberation" which was a conversation between John Lennon, George Harrison and Srila Prabhupada.  "Wow, the Beatles met Srila Prabhupada and they were into him.  Amazing!" I thought.  Being a huge fan of the Beatles, I thought if they were into Hare Krishna then it was definitely something I should further investigate.  After sometime, I realized that the song "My Sweet Lord" had the Hare Krishna mantra.  I had been hearing it all these years and hadn't even noticed it.  My interest gradualy became more than just casual.  

From the back of the books, we contacted a store on the west coast and started ordering more books and beads for chanting.  When they arrived, we started chanting Hare Krishna in circle groups, getting many of our friends involved.  There was my brother Kevin and I, Phil, Mark, Clyde, Randy, Donna, John and whoever else would chant with us from time to time. Chanting the maha-mantra became quite infectious for me.  It was truly amazing how it changed my way of looking at things.  Daily, I was getting profound realizations about life.  Krishna was obviously giving me a taste.   I remember an edited yellow paperback Gita that arrived in the mail.  I started making it my nightly practice to chant a round and then relax by smoking marijuana and finally reading an hour from Prabhupada's Gita.  I remember looking through the glossary and index to try to find the definition of illicit sex.  Sex can be spiritual, I thought, so what is this illicit sex that is prohibited?  

I vividly recall the scare I got one night when Prabhupada warned in a purport not to copy the isvaras or controllers like Lord Shiva by smoking ganja, like some of Shiva's followers do.  He wrote that Shiva drank an ocean of poison, but if we drink one such drop we would die immediately.  Similarly, those who imitate Shiva by smoking ganja regularly, he said, are actually drawing death very near.  I got the hebee-gebees when I read that one. I had been smoking everyday for four years. Marijuana already can make you paranoid enough, but reading this while on the stuff... it was quite spooky.   It didn't take long after that, before I gave up the drugs for good.  I also became frightened when I saw a painting by Jadurani of the half-man half-tiger face (a reincarnation promise for those who eat meat).

It startled me. "This is uncut reality," I thought.