Aindra das biography of michael

His untimely exposure to music would later play a major role in his devotional life. Deeply moved, he began reading Sri Isopanisad, translated and commented on by A. Succeeding that year, he was initiated into the Gaudiya Vaisnavism tradition by A. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, admission the spiritual name " Aindra Dasa ". From the too beginning of his spiritual journey, Aindra displayed exceptional dedication to his spiritual practices.

He began top service with deity worship in Washington D. Deity worship is the devotional custom of offering service to sacred images or deities that represent different forms of the Supreme Almighty, Krishna, and His various manifestations. This practice, painstaking as archana, is a central part of influence devotional life in the Gaudiya Vaisnavism tradition, calculate which ISKCON belongs.

In ISKCON temples, deity venerate involved activities like dressing, bathing, offering foodstuffs, oblation prayers and engaging in other rituals at popular intervals throughout the day. Aindra Dasa's spiritual passage evolved significantly during his time in New Dynasty City. Inhe began taking kirtan equivalent to the streets using a small amplifier and unornamented hand cart, often accompanied by fellow disciples, near sometimes grand-disciples, of A.

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Enthrone creative efforts in New York City include permutation a panel box van into a mobile holy place, which he used to conduct kirtans in important locations like Broadway and Central Park. These efforts attracted widespread attention and led many to hold the path of devotion. This initiative was inspired by the understanding that the loud intonation of the Holy Names of Krishna is high-mindedness supreme means of spiritual victory, as taught wishy-washy Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

This initial endeavor, though fervent in its inception, was ceased altogether hillless than a year after the founder's passing in With the support of unembellished few like-minded associates, Aindra Dasa reconstituted the hour kirtan endeavor as a formal department within Sect Vrindavan. Initially, the department hired singers and musicians but, within six month, Aindra dismissed all probity paid performers due to concerns about philosophical conflicts regarding payment as a motive for service envision God according to Gaudiya Vaishnavism.

At that time he started his Sankirtan newsletter. We would go out for like an hour at about AM, and then around 9 oror so, we would come back and have breakfast prasad -- it would have been cooked and offered and ready. We would take prasad and by we would go out again on harinama-sankirtan. We would do side-by-side Back to Godhead distribution, taking turns selling magazines and chanting.

SR: Did you like sankirtan? AD: Oh yeah.

Aindra das biography of michael

I loved it. It was great. I liked it all, the whole nine yards. I remember the first Sunday feast that I attended, the week before my father drove me to the temple to stay, or maybe it was two weeks before … I ate up to the neck actually, five plates of the most incredible strawberry halavah …. SR: After an austere life of only eating a few figs a day?

AD: Well, they convinced me about prasadand I was delighted. They convinced me that with prasadam there was no karmaand that I would be liberated by eating this food because it was spiritualized, offered to Krishna. That first devotee convinced me, the woman who explained that if I feed my cat offered food then it was no longer sinful. I remember at the first Sunday feast I was eating 20 poppers, big poppers fried in ghee, after eating five plates of prasadam.

So we cleaned the temple room, and then we started a big kirtanand we did two hours of heavy-duty kirtan. My eyes were closed the whole time. I was so absorbed in the kirtan that I was practically out of my body. I was totally out of bodily consciousness, so much so that when the kirtan finally finished, and I more or less became aware of my body again, I realized that my feet were blistered on the bottom from so much dancing ….

You were obviously ready for this, picking up from where you left off in a previous life. In any case, it was a great kirtan experience. In fact, one of my most memorable kirtan experiences was that first Sunday feast kirtan after the prasadam. It has stayed with me all these years. SR: Was it hard to give up getting high and your addictions from your previous life, or, I should say, from your life prior to becoming a devotee?

AD: No. I was amazed. Totally amazed. It all came quite naturally. I should tell it to you, though. Okay, to begin, Prabhupada had just sent a letter to us, to Damodar Prabhu, expressing his great pleasure with our hour s ankirtan days. SR: Fourteen hours?! AD: Oh, yes. We would just leave the temple doing s ankirtan all the way down to Georgetown.

Sometimes we would go down to the Washington Mall between the monument and the Capitol building area. Kirtan there was great. And distributing Back to Godhead magazines there also, and take prasad out there also. Packing lunches. It was a full day thing. SR: So that was like total absorption. Okay, and the esoteric story? AD: Yes. It was blissful but exhausting as well.

SR: Sure. But I had an incredible experience. SR: Tell me. AD: We all lie down to take rest, everyone had fallen asleep, and I was starting to drift off. But I was still in that in-between state, not quite dreaming. In fact, my eyes were still open, and suddenly I hear an amazing sound. It was really incredible, otherworldly, and it was coming from a distance.

It was some other-dimensional sound, not from here, unlike anything I had ever heard. It was completely transcendental. Still, it was clear that it was getting closer and closer. Then, I started seeing another dimension, a subtle existence, which was above me. I was lying down on the floor, as all the other brahmacharis were, and I started seeing a sort of multi-dimensional reality; it was like looking at a beautiful painting of some sort — coming to life, moving right in front of me!

SR: What was its content? AD: It was a stampede coming from a distance, unclear at first but definitely a stampede. When it did get closer, I started hearing the trampling of feet and hoofs, and ankle-bells, and laughing, and incredible, blissful merriment, and buffalo horn bugles were blowing, too, and flute playing. That was the sound.

Boys and cows and all kinds of beings were running and playing. It was intense. And then, as they were getting closer, I could see clearly that they were all running, joyfully running, as if they were running back to Nandagram! And there was Krishna and Balaram — there They were, in the midst of it all. But they were all running on glass, about maybe four feet above me.

This is hard to explain. There was like a plate of glass, see-through, and I was able to watch it through the glass, as they ran above me. I was seeing it clearly as they were coming closer and closer. Then, when they were above me, I was actually seeing the bottoms of their feet, as if they were running on glass. Mind you, I was listening to what He was playing, because prior to joining the movement, I also played flute from my earlier days.

SR: Your vision sounds a bit like a premonition of sakhya-bhavawith the cowherd boys. AD: Hmm. SR: You had played flute when you were younger …. AD: Yeah, I played kind of a jazzy Jethro Tull style of flute, so when I would come in to join the kirtan parties, I would sometimes be playing my flute. SR: He was just trying to get you to give up your attachment to playing flute ….

And that made good enough sense to me. Krishna, after only a week of performing nama-sankirtan with the devotees — it was Krishna and Balaram in a stampede of cowherd boys and cows. They were running, and so happy, and the sound was incredibly blissful. SR: Anything more about that vision? I realize that it was a aindra das biography of michael time ago, but it was obviously a special vision, a gift to keep you in devotional service ….

AD: It was indescribably blissful, the sight, the sound vibration. I was hearing Krishna playing His flute, and He was glancing down from that dimension, down, through the glass to me. He was making eye contact with me, with an incredibly, incredibly compassionate expression on His face. And He was just overwhelming me with attraction….

SR: Alluring, to say the least…. Does anything else even come close? The sound was so incredible, and my hair was standing on end. I actually experienced these symptoms, practically from that first day…. SR: I see it as being like the story of Narada, who, early on, was given a taste to keep him in devotional service, to whet his appetite.

You could say that it was like a shadow, a hint of things to come. I must say, though, that, from my point of view, Krishna was inundating me with shuddha sattva — it was totally spiritual. And as they stampeded over me, I experienced the intensity of the ananda — the pure bliss -- that I was experiencing from their presence, and from the incredible beatitude of the otherworldly vibration they were generating.

And then I woke up the next morning fully remembering the experience. From that day on, from that experience, I realized that this Krishna Consciousness movement is very, very powerful. It was so real, more real than anything I had ever experienced in the external world. I realized then and there that Srila Prabhupada is very, very powerful.

And, I must say, that that one experience alone made me dedicate my heart and soul to the lotus feet of Krishna. And it made me resolve that I would never, ever, ever leave the lotus feet of Krishna, because I realized that there really is a Krishna, because I actually saw Him face-to-face, and eye-to-eye, just in that first week. SR: Okay.

I have a question for you: Why you? I mean there are so many devotees who join. Some stay, some leave, but very few have that kind of experience. AD: Well, in my estimation, just in retrospect, I have another story to tell that might answer that question, but it relates to the Vrindavan situation when my father was leaving his body.

AD: Yeah, so I can only explain it briefly in this way, we can elaborate later. It must be due to samskaras from a previous lifetime of engagement in devotional service, previous lifetime of involvement with Bhakti-yoga. SR: Philosophically, that would have to be the case. SR: If we can get to that later then maybe I can insert it here, if it seems to fit.

SR: So where do we go from here? AD: Anyway, all of this is from very first days as a devotee. SR: Did you get into that? Going out in western dress and selling books? AD: Yeah, I ended up spending more time doing book distribution. I would go out, because we were no longer distributing books by the side of the nama-sankirtan party, with the chanting party.

As the book distribution push increased, I was involved less with doing nama-sankirtanbut I would always go out and do it whenever I could. I aindra das biography of michael go out for the maha-harinama-sankirtans on the weekends. Frankly, I would live from maha-harinama and Sunday feast to the next one, basically. And then Vishnujana Maharaja came through with his Radha-Damodara bus, changing my life.

SR: Jai! He was one of my greatest heroes. SR: Me too. He and I traveled together, all over the States. We actually became quite close. AD: He came through DC during my second initiation. SR: First mention your hari-nama initiation. SR: Was Prabhupada there? The drama had resumed each night for two weeks. Aindra : Kirtan Revolution.

He took initiation from His Divine Grace A. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at a very young age. He was a self realised Saint- which is a very rare achievement. He shed all material designations and remained loyal to Iskcon, being established by his Guru, Srila Prabhupada. On the contrary he seemed to exponentially get deeper with each year.

As the author describes in the Biography during the preface, that Aindra displayed many various characteristics within his nature that often seemed contradictory. He was sometimes very shy and at other times very bold. He was sometimes very innocent like a child and at other times very assertive on principles of spiritual practice. He could act like a friend, but then suddenly advise you like a father and sometimes even get heavy like a Guru.

He would cry, and then laugh and then get very serious in the space of a few minutes while explaining the same principle. He was genuine. He was not a typical devotee.