You know them, if you’ve spent
much time in New York City.
Every day from April through
October, from 1pm to 7:30, they sit near the Gandhi statue in the southwestern
corner of Union Square. Women in saris, men in orange or beige Vedic robes,
heads shaved except for a tuft in the back.
They set up a mat and a few
thin cushions. Someone plays drums, someone leads the chanting from a small
harmonium. A pair of finger cymbals gets passed around. A wooden sign propped
up in front displays the words of the maha-mantra in bold: “Hare Krishna Hare
Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare”.
In the winter and bad weather,
they go down into the subway stations. Tablas and harmonium compete with the
crashing arrival and departure of trains.
One devotee sits at the book
table, collecting donations and encouraging passersby to look at the selection
of books and pamphlets.
If a crowd gathers or someone
stops to watch for long enough, another will walk around offering copies of the
Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation
and commentary by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada, as the
devotees call him.
I spent a season with Harinama
Sankirtana NYC, New York’s most persistent group of bhakti yogis, back when I
was younger and weirder. (Younger, at least.)
When I first discovered
spirituality, I went through a strange, sweet transition period during which,
having cut most of the ties of my previous life but not yet finding my feet in
my new one, I floated around observing the world with a childlike joy.
I had a job during this period,
30-odd hours a week at a Korean restaurant in Bushwick, but my memories of the
time are all Union Square.
I didn’t know how to meditate
but I spent hours trying to at the Three Jewels Tibetan Buddhist center on
Broadway. I immersed myself in the library at the Tibet House on West 16th.
In fits of panicky compassion, heart cracked open to the suffering of the
world, I walked around looking for homeless people and gave them money, my own
hats and gloves, bought them lunch and listened to their stories. I bought
spiritual books at the Strand and read them at the Bean across the street on
East 12th.
One day, I sat on the fountain
in Union Square and watched the crowds. The Hare Krishnas were chanting. Every
so often, someone would stop to watch them or take a picture. The devotee on
book-pushing duty was universally polite and enthusiastic, even trying to get
the teenagers snapping ironic selfies to buy a Bhagavad Gita.
After an hour or so, one of
them came over to me.
It was a sort of odd-duck
devotee. I would see him a lot later on. He was at the kirtan every day, and he
had the same sikha and fanatical
intensity in his eyes as the others, but he dressed in old jeans and flannel.
He would usually sit quietly in
the back, rarely chanting. Every so often, a light would suddenly catch in his
eyes and he would spring to his feet and twirl across the pavement, as graceful
as a trained dancer and light on his feet as if there were strings suspending
his weight from the sky.
In a sea of Sanskrit names, he
went by George.
So he came to me, crouched down
and offered me a book. “This book changed my life,” he said.
It was a slim white paperback
called Chant and Be Happy, half
Prabhupada and half interviews with John Lennon and George Harrison.
A goofy book, in which George
talks about finding God in a samosa and chanting the Hare Krishna mantra as if
his life depended on it when an airplane hit turbulence. But for some reason, I
stuck around to read it, and when another monk invited me to sit with them, I
sat down and started chanting.
I had no idea what was going
on, and it felt weird and cultish at first, but something about the syllables
resonated in my heart. The chanting felt like coming back home. And I was
curious about these strange, orange people.
Over several months of joining
the kirtan almost every day, they never asked me what I did for work or where I
was from. We sang together, and if we talked it was about the singing, how
important it was to spread the mantra and the love of Krishna. And yet, several
of them became my friends, in a way.
They certainly had the
intensity of a cult but there was something extremely pure in them. They
chanted with the same heart whether there was a crowd of 50 people gathered to
watch, or if no-one had stopped in hours.
They gave food to anyone who
asked. Hungry homeless people got special care.
One time, a band of Christian
fundamentalists set up shop across from them, with signs like “Jesus Saves,
Sinners Repent” or something. A devotee girl named Madevi Dasi ran barefoot
across the pavement to give them a hug.
Day in, day out, filling the
corner of Union Square with sacred vibrations.
It’s not every day that you get
to rub shoulders with people who live in such single-minded faith, who really
believe with every fiber of their being that by singing those sixteen Sanskrit
words with enough faith and devotion, they can bring peace to the world.
I guess that’s the type of
faith you need to do what they do, just to hold that frequency in the heart of
downtown Manhattan.
After a while my life caught up
with me and I went to the kirtan less and less. It awakened something in my
heart, though, and that has stayed. I pray to Krishna sometimes. My heart jumps
when I see a statue or hear his name. When I hear the maha-mantra, I can’t help
dancing.
And I learned a few lessons
from them.
1. It’s ok if people think you’re weird.
The next time you want to do
something but also don’t want to do it because people will look at you funny,
do it anyways!
People judging you is not the
end of the world. This was a huge surprise to me. I wish I could say that after
this experience, I never again felt limited by other people’s opinions, but
it’s not always so easy.
Still, doing something which is
outside your social comfort zone is very valuable for showing you your own
restrictions.
We all like to think we’re
independent and free-minded, but there’s always a point where fear of breaking
social conventions kicks in. Why? Someone thinks you’re weird, someone doesn’t
like you… so what?
Subconsciously, these concerns
can be paralyzing, even if we’re not aware of how strong they are. On some
level, we’re often just trying to get people to like us. Say the right thing,
do what they will approve of, be what we’re supposed to be in that context.
What if we work on loving other
people instead of making them like us?
2. There are hidden worlds right next to you.
This goes double for NYC but
it’s true everywhere.
The person sitting next to you
on the train might be experiencing a reality completely different from yours. The
New York that I know is nothing like the New York that the “show time” kids on
the Q train know, or the Yiddish-speaking Hassidim in Borough Park, or the Hindi-speaking
families in Jackson Heights, or the high-powered professionals who I never see
on the train because they take cabs.
You can be in a Hare Krishna
bubble, for example, and live your whole life going from ashram to kirtan to
dharma lecture and back, never brushing against anything that the people ten
feet away from you would relate to.
And in a way, that’s true for
all of us. Your life is your own, your references are yours and your world is
yours.
Most of the time, we share
space with people who inhabit similar worlds, so it seems like there’s some
single, concrete version of reality out there. If someone perceives a different
version, it must be a distortion. After all, my reality is the right one, right?
3. Being a bit of a cult can be a good thing
My mom, a classical Jewish
mother, has a constant fear that I’ve joined a cult.
I can't tell her too much about what I study, because within hours she'll call me up like, "Tasha, I've been doing some research online and I have a few concerns..."
The problem is that if you
Google some of my main teachers, people who I know to be wise, selfless,
dedicated and deeply realized beings, you get some kind of sketchy stuff.
Strong teachings, that can
shake the core of reality and bring transformation, never have an easy time in
this world. Bring something mild and easy, some vague stuff about how we should
all love each other and be more mindful, and everyone’s happy with it.
The fact that everyone can
agree on something means it probably isn’t pushing the limits. And isn’t that
what spirituality is about? How much transformation can you get from something
that doesn’t push your limits?
I’ve been connected to several
paths that seem a little cultish to those on the outside. I actually like this
about them.
If it seems cultish, it’s
strong. It’s taking you somewhere.
Say what you will about those
crazy Hare Krishnas or whoever, you can’t say they aren’t devoted to their path.
Their practice is their life. They’re serious about spirituality in the way
most of us only wish we were.
N.B. I’m not endorsing
fanaticism! I’m not saying it’s good to get into this blind faith thing where
everything gets distorted into one narrow worldview and you lose your
connection to fellow humans.
However, it’s ok to be a bit of
a fanatic sometimes. Be a fanatic about saving all beings from suffering. Be a
fanatic about universal love. Be a fanatic about realizing your divine nature
in this lifetime.
4. Hold space for divinity wherever you can
New York City is a crazy place.
It’s like the manic, incandescent swadisthana of the world. When I lived there,
it felt like the energy was so intense at times, the whole city was a hair’s
breadth away from dissolving into chaos.
And then there are the Hare
Krishnas, chanting away in their little corner of Union Square every day.
It might not look like much,
but they’re sitting on one of the pulse points of the city. A tiny whisper of
spirituality is added to the background noise, planting tiny seeds in the
subconscious minds of anyone who hears them, even if they don’t give a second
glance.
I really believe these little
pockets of spirituality are what hold the city (and the world) together.
So where can you bring more
divinity into your life? Where is the deepest darkness into which you can bring
a spark of light? Where are the wild places that need a breath of peace? The
dead zones in your life, or in your soul, that most need a touch of life?
5.
Now is the
right time for a spontaneous burst of joy
One of the feelings I got the
most from my Hare Krishna days was the sense of closeness and trust with God.
It’s the knowledge that God’s
covenant is alive in the heart of creation, the promise that the soul is cared
for and will be brought home.
God isn’t just an abstract. The
life is in you right now, the call is in your heart.
Sometimes it doesn’t take years
of practice or study. Sometimes it just takes love. One moment of surrender.
One moment of losing yourself in devotion.
With the Hare Krishnas, divine ecstasy
is never farther than a few chants away. That joy is always open to you, always
waiting for you to return. In fact, God is yearning for you to merge into Him
just as much as you are yearning for that dissolution.
So whenever you feel like
flinging your arms up in the air and dancing, that’s the right time.
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