Finding Heart

Sri Sri Guru-Gauranga Jayatah!

Dandavat pranam. Jay Srila Prabhupad!

I hope this letter finds you in good health and sound mind.

Lately I feel like I have fallen slack in my devotional service and spiritual practice. Truly, I normally ignore my exhaustion and try my best to re-commit myself each morning, each moment of every day. Over a decade ago, HH Rtadhvaja Swami advised me that the best strategy was to take Krishna Consciousness a day at a time. I realized immediately that if I thought about the long-term goal, at some point, the goal might seem unattainable. For my fickle and immature mind, it would be easier to endeavor only in baby steps. Everyday I followed those wise instructions and maintained my vows to the best of my ability. I endeavored patiently, slowly chiseling away at a lifelong vow of loyalty to Krishna, Guru, and Gauranga in hopes of attaining the highest goal-- prema-bhakti. 

I loved my god-siblings, served them, followed their wisdom, asked their advice and so on. At times, I felt pressured to accept first initiation but I resisted the temptation to rush such an important commitment until I was certain. After years of contemplating, I accepted first initiation in the company of sweet vaishnavs and celebrated my spiritual birth. I remember that day clearly. I tearfully circumambulated the sacrificial fire in ecstasy knowing I had found spiritual shelter. That was seven years ago this Balaram Purnima. Over these past seven years, I have realized that I am a fraud. I have lost sight of my eternal self, service, name, identity, and mood. I followed the rules and regulations with unyielding zeal. I only cared about following protocol. I learned to sit properly, dress properly, behave properly, speak properly, and think properly but I did not learn to love properly. I did not love anyone or anything properly. I did not even love myself properly because I was too busy contorting myself to fit into a box properly. More recently, I found a sanga where I feel accepted, welcomed, and loved. I found a wonderful place where I do not have to contort myself to fit in. I found vaishnavs with kindness and acceptance at the core of their hearts, with warmth and affection I did not find at temple. One day, as I was reciting my pranams to the acharya sampraday and my ishtha-devatas, I realized I was never going to fit in. Indeed, it is impossible to push a square cog into a round hole. As I slowly uttered, “ananta koti vaishnava vrinda ki” I felt hollow inside and realized though I may offer my prostrate obeisance to hundreds, thousands, even millions of vaishnavs, I will never quite be up to par. I will never be counted among them. What's more, I do not want to fit in. I know I will never be good enough. No matter how hard I contort, distort, repress and suppress myself, I will never feel good enough. I want to be myself and be accepted. I want to feel loved. I do not want to be part of a society where I feel pressured to fake it and go through the motions. I do not want to be part of a community in which appearances means more than sincerity and intention. I do not want to be part of a society wherein one is reprimanded for speaking frankly and honestly and gloried for being delusional and duplicitous. I ask myself if there is something wrong with me for feeling this way but each time I do so, I hear a resounding and overwhelming, "No!" 

I want a heart because I lost mine somewhere along the way. 

Apnar kinkar

Fossil Rim Wildlife Park

Today I woke up early, cooked, offered, worshiped my Lordships, had a quick pancake breakfast, packed a picnic lunch, some supplies and left early in the morning toward Glen Rose, Texas listening to kirtan the entire way. It's been my desire to visit this lovely town again for a couple years, mainly for the riverbed fossil digs and it's awesome wildlife park-- Fossil Rim. It's been many years since I went there but I still vividly remember the lovely nature walk, feeding wild animals in close proximity and the sheer adventure of not knowing what you'd dig up next. Picnics, walks through the state park, wading in the river. ::sigh::
 Krishna Chandra is totally in love with the place, I'm even considering a membership. Chandaneswar is excited to visit Dinosaur Valley State Park; next time we plan on rising even earlier and heading straight to the dig and then hit up Fossil Rim after an outdoor picnic to feed the variety of horned creatures. I can wait to visit again! I have photographs of all the exotic, endangered and near-extinct species from all over the world but I'll upload those later.. when I'm feeling more inclined to deal with that. Right now, I need a relaxing shower, sringar, some Bengali padavali tunes and electrolytes because tomorrow is Ekadaśi and I absolutely must recover from today's wildlife excursion. And to wash some of that soft water off of me. : p 

Rāsa-rāsa

I don't know why but for some reason these past few days my mind is pretty damn blank. Especially today. For the life of me, I can't come up with any valid blog entries for today. Maybe it's all that fresh produce juice I've been drinking lately. Ah, the juice fast, I guess I could talk about that.
These past few days I'm drinking a lot of juice at each meal. The fast isn't really a fast in the traditional sense, I still eat solid foods but I've cut down my portions, with the exceptions of soups and salad on which I gorge myself. Occasionally, I have a portion of heavy food and it sickens me, then I can go back to juicing without any problems. It's like an electroshock, I see the junk food, greasy, spicy, whatever... it looks really enticing and try to have some but then I get gas, bloating, stomach-aches and I realise that I messed up. The next time I see that food, I'm filled with bad memories of nausea and gas, feeling bloated and icky all over so I just avoid it.  Lesson learned, move on... that sorta thing. I have to train myself to avoid food that upsets my stomach at all costs, not just for my physical health but also for my emotional and spiritual health. I really think that juicing is the cause of my mental sharpness. The extra mental clarity is something that I'll have to get used to but I'd rather die than give it up. In addition to the juice fast, I'm applying myself to a daily yoga-pranayam routine again, starting two days ago. I'm hoping to increase it slowly and hopefully get more control over my mental activities. I don't know how long it will last or what the results will be but I know that I don't want to go back to my old habits; I want to completely change into a new being. No more unhealthy thoughts or actioins, period. Any addictive substance, while you're 'high' will make you think it's wonderful and great but when you gain control over your own mind, body and self, you can't think twice about giving it up again. Freedom. It's something really empowering to have absolute control and freedom. I guess I should attend to my carrot-ginger-cucumber rāsa right about now. :)

Real Men Eat Plants

Yesterday I finally got around to watching the movie my husband has been nagging me about for the past two or three weeks. I knew it was about vegetarianism and the serious health complications from eating meat, but he didn't explain to me how awesome it truly was. There are clinical studies and research attached to the fact that plant-based diets are healthy for everyone and can even reverse health problems. To this day, whenever we tell someone that we're vegetarians, they ask ridiculous questions like "What do you eat? How do you get your protein? Are you sure you're getting enough vitamins and nutrients without meat? etc." and it infuriates me. Meat doesn't have nutrients because its dead and decomposed by the time it reaches your body, whatever nutrients were there are now gone and what remains when you consume it doesn't get digested or ever make their way into your bloodstream because your stomach doesn't have the acids necessary to fully digest it in the first place. Really what you're doing is consuming rotten flesh that continues to decompose inside your body and release toxins into your blood. I promised I would try to stay positive this week, even if it kills me, so I'll change the subject and not rant. Just try and watch this movie, Forks Over Knives, it will change your outlook about Vegetarianism (if you're not already Vegetarian) or at least add to your knowledge regarding the benefits of it. Now on to the next topic.

Krishna Chandra has been home with a cough these past three, now four, days; I'm feeding him homeopathic medicine to help him out a bit. He seems to be improving but not enough to send him to school yet. I wonder how long this will continue and how long before he doesn't want to return to school at all. Everyday he wakes up, prepares for school and tells me he's ready to go back... I almost agree with him until I hear that horrible cough. His chest is congested but he's just not coughing up any of it. So far I finished a container of bryonia alba 30c, then, we bought some homeopathic cough syrup yesterday morning at Sunflower farmers market. Despite the fact that its made with honey with no artificial flavors, colors, smells, weird grainy textures and a hellish after-taste like other 'normal' cough medicines and is helping him a lot, he always refuses to cooperate and whines about taking it. I tasted some of it and I have to say, Krishna Chandra complains way too much. I would be really damn happy and with no complaints if my mommy was feeding me this deliciously sweet concoction every couple of hours. 

This morning Chandaneśwar prabhu was looking through the refrigerator and saw my box of henna/mehendi sitting there untouched for ages and asked me why I haven't managed to use it up already. I told him nobody seemed interested in getting their hands hennaed or can't sit still long enough for me to practice on them. He replied, "Then use it on yourself! Draw henna on your hands, feet... and keep drawing [on yourself] until you run out of space!" I giggled and realised that it had been too long since I sat down and played with my cones so today I'm going to practice on myself, then husband and eventually Krishna Chandra. He usually likes when I draw cute things on his hands or feet. Mainly he prefers small flowers, nothing gaudy, just simple things like that. Chandaneśwar usually falls asleep so I get time to draw on him more and usually manage to make a Lord Jagannath on his shoulder or back while he's knocked the &#$^ out. Its funny because he doesn't realise it's there until I point it out to him. He loves Lord Jagannath, he even wanted to get a Jagannath tattoo on his shoulder but.. here's some sexist double standard for you... he won't let me get a tattoo or any body piercing that isn't on my ears or nose. Of course... I don't really wear much jewelry so its not like I would take full advantage of the opportunity anyway. Plus, I like my simple golden septum ring and diamond nose-stud, they make me very happy.

Happy Henna-ing!