On Monday and Tuesday, May 4th and 5th, the TOVP along with the Padukas and Sitari visited the homes of a few families for darshan and prasadam. These included the home of Suresh Krishna das and Sundari Gopika devi dasi and were accompanied by Amani Gaura Hari das and Shastra Krt das.

On Wednesday, May 6th, we departed from Los Angeles for Las Vegas, Nevada, also known as Sin City, stopping briefly for prasadam at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Agarwal.

Las Vegas is a community of devotees that is growing and in the process of renovating a building into a new temple. We arrived late in the afternoon, had evening prasadam and then went out on Harinama Samkirtana on the famous Las Vegas strip, known for its gambling casinos and wild entertainment.

On Thursday, May 7th, we paid a visit to the home of Doyal Nitai das and Priya Kumari devi dasi for lunch prasadam. Then in the evening we made our way to the Krishna Lounge with the Padukas and Sitari to give darshan to the devotee community. Around 40 devotees and guests attended the program for kirtan, a simple TOVP presentation and prasadam.

Before departing from Las Vegas on the morning of Friday, May 8th we brought Lord Nityananda’s Padukas to the new temple site to bless the project with His causeless mercy for the success of the preaching there. Afterwards, we departed for the Laguna Beach Temple, stopping overnight at the home of Dr. Nanda in Apple Valley for prasadam and a program of kirtan and Krishna katha.

On the afternoon of Saturday, May 9th we arrived in Laguna Beach, California where the Pancha Tattva have resided for over a quarter of a century. With little time available, we quickly got ready for our TOVP presentation as devotees started arriving during the Gaura arati.

The Temple President, Tukarama prabhu, introduced the TOVP Team, and Radha Jivana prabhu began the program talking about the TOVP and then gave the microphone over to Jananivas prabhu who elaborated on the glories of Mayapur Dhama and the TOVP project. The pledging began and practically every single devotee made a pledge, including Tukarama himself who pledged towards 2 Silver Gratitude Coins and 3 Nrsimha Tiles. The program concluded with almost $280,000 pledged. Prasadam was then served. That evening we departed for our next destination, the San Diego Temple, about 1½ hours away.

By Krishna Kumara dasa

Even after 6 years of more-or-less full-time book distribution, I still feel anxiety when I approach strangers on the street. You’d think that such inhibition would dissipate after some time. But, somehow or other (and probably due to my fruitive mentality), it’s still there. Of course, as the day rolls on, I generally become more comfortable, but I always seem to have to start from scratch the next morning. It can be very debilitating!
My first day out on book distribution after having moved to Gita Nagari Dhama, I ventured out to Princeton University while delivering some milk to the nearby New Jersey temples. As I stepped out of the van and onto campus, I found myself faced with the usual mental impediment. Victimized by my mind’s material acceptance and rejection, I was reluctant to approach the many high-powered fraternity and sorority students of this esteemed Ivy League school. After all, its students represent the pinnacle of beauty, wealth, power, high birth, and education.
My Supreme Personality of Mindhead said:
“Oh no, don’t approach that one- he looks intimidating, just like a demigod descended from heaven.”
“Oh, DEFINITELY not her, she looks like the head cheerleader. It would be humiliating if she rejected the book.”
“Ok, finally, here’s an easy one…”
“WAIT! He’s with a girl! … Approaching couples is scary! What if he rejects the book and laughs at me? Ahh!”
“What am I doing out here anyways? Princeton is hopeless. Damn this place. These high-powered demons will never take to Krishna Consciousness. Should have gone to some less intense university. What time is it anyways? Time for brunch yet?”
Crack! Bang! Taking a few lashings from my mind’s sharp whip, I eventually came to my senses. Just as a coach splashes water on his boxer’s face, gives him a pep talk, and tells him to get back in the ring, so Guru and Krishna within the heart also encourage the sankirtan devotee.
“Therefore the doubts which have arisen in your heart out of ignorance should be slashed by the weapon of knowledge. Armed with yoga, O Bharata, stand and fight.” (Bg. 4.42)
At this time, I decided to read my daily chapter of Bhagavad-gita, and take shelter of Lord Krishna’s instructions. This day I was on the sixth chapter. The entire chapter gives amazing instructions on mind control, but when I approached verses 29 through 32, I recognized that this is the meditation I needed in order to pass over this present mental block.
29 “A true yogi observes Me in all beings, and also sees every being in Me. Indeed, the self-realized man sees Me everywhere.
30 “For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me.
31 “The yogi who knows that I and the Supersoul within all creatures are one worships Me and remains always in Me in all circumstances.
32 “He is a perfect yogi who, by comparison to his own self, sees the true equality of all beings, both in their happiness and distress, O Arjuna!”
After finishing the chapter, I felt inspired to practice seeing everyone in their true spiritual position, and as connected to Krishna. This is the vision of the true yogi. So, picking up my stack of books, I approached the first person who popped up in my purview. “You look bright and serene,” I said, referring to the inherent characteristics of the jiva soul. “Here is one of Krishna’s lost jivas,” I reminded myself.
As long as I maintained this meditation, all my anxieties and inhibitions completely disappeared, and I felt comfortable approaching anyone. I also felt a particular kind of empowerment, where I felt that anyone I approached would take a book. Three students sitting together at a table each happily took books. A PhD student took some books. Even the Chinese exchange students who barely spoke English took books. In fact, even the inanimate statue of Benjamin Franklin nearly took a book!
Twelve hours flew by, and what at first looked like it would turn out to be, what we call, a “blooper day,” ended up being my single biggest day on book distribution ever at a university.
The potency of reading a daily chapter of Bhagavad-gita is not to be underestimated. Not only is it said to free us from certain offenses, such as in Deity worship, but Srila Prabhupada recommended it on numerous occasions:

“I thank you so much for having nicely appreciated the Bhagavad-gita As It Is. This book should be read by all of my students at least one chapter per day, and in kirtana class it should be discussed sloka after sloka. Practically, we have tried to explain in this book all of the basic principles of Krishna Consciousness. If you can simply cram Bhagavad-gita then you will surely become a very good preacher.” (Letter to Hamsaduta 69.01.02)
“Please encourage the others to read this Bhagavad-gita at least one chapter every day.” (Letter to Upendra 69.01.06)
“Be sure to chant your sixteen rounds daily and read one chapter of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, one chapter daily.” (Letter to Arundhati 69.01.26)
“Now you have your beads, so please chant at least 16 rounds daily, and read from Bhagavad-gita As It Is at least one chapter daily.” (Letter to Turya 69.06.05)
“In my books the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness is explained fully so if there is anything which you do not understand, then you simply have to read again and again. By reading daily the knowledge will be revealed to you and by this process your spiritual life will develop.” (Letter to Bahurupa 74.11.22)

So let us take shelter of Srila Prabhupada by studying his books daily, and thus receive his blessings and empowerment in whatever particular service we may have been allotted.
Nitai Gaura Premanande!
Your servant,
Krishna Kumara dasa

By Jayadvaita Swami

The illustration on this page depicts an allegory, the Story of King Puranjana, which was told ages ago by the great sage Narada to explain some of the perplexities of life in this material world.

The Seige on the Kingdom of Puranjana

King Puranjana, the ruler of the country known as Pancala, lived in an opulent city, full of gardens, parks, and palaces of dazzling beauty, There King Puranjana reigned for one hundred years in great comfort, surrounded by his servants, family, friends, and other citizens.

King Puranjana had a very beautiful wife, who was the center of his enjoyment, and of his very existence, Captivated by his wife’s attractive features, the King became preoccupied with pleasing her and tasting the pleasures of sex, He became extremely attached to his children, his home, and his material possessions, Desires for enjoyment filled his mind, and pursuing their satisfaction became his main occupation.

Meanwhile, the King’s youth quickly expired, and soon his kingdom was attacked by a powerful king named Candavega. Here we may note that the Sanskrit word puranjana signifies the living entity within the body,” The Vedic teachings make a clear distinction between the body itself and the living force that dwells within the body, The body is a sort of mechanical vehicle formed of various inert elements, The structures of the body, although wondrously complex, have no life of their own. Rather, it is the conscious self within the body who gives the body life. And when that consciousness departs, the body becomes lifeless.

King Puranjana, therefore, represents the living entity, for each living entity may be said to be the king or master of his own body, The country of Pancala represents the atmosphere in which one can enjoy one’s senses, and the capital city represents the body itself, The city’s walls, parks, towers, gates, and so on represent the skin, hair, sensory organs, and other constituents of the body, The Sanskrit word candavega means “passing very swiftly,” So King Candavega represents Time, King Candavega attacked the city of King Puranjana with 360 male and female soldiers, who represent the days and nights of the year, As each day and night pass, one has lost another day of one’s life.

While King Candavega and his soldiers were attempting to plunder the city of King Puranjana, a five-headed serpent began to defend the city, This serpent represents the living entity’s vital force, According to Vedic scriptures dealing with yoga, the vital force maintains the workings of the body through five kinds of air that move within the body, Thus the serpent is represented as having five hoods, As time attacks, one’s vital force fights back to maintain the body, Gradually, however, the vital force weakens, Thus the five-hooded serpent began to lose his strength.

Because King Puranjana collected taxes within his kingdom, he was free to enjoy the pleasures of sex, By the nature of sexual affairs, he didn’t realize that he was coming increasingly under the control of women, that his life was passing away, and that he was quickly approaching death.

A living entity tries to be happy by sexual enjoyment, but the more he tries to enjoy, the more he becomes entangled in material existence, By sexual enjoyment, one becomes even more firmly rooted in the illusion that the body is the self, and one increasingly forgets one’s spiritual identity and the need for spiritual realization, As the influence of sexual attachment expands, one begins to cling not only to one’s wife but also to home, land, and possessions. One begets children and must see to their welfare, and one becomes obliged to maintain one’s prestige among relatives and friends, Consequently, for the sake of supposed enjoyment, one has to work very hard for money to support one’s family and home, One forgets that one’s body, family, and home are all temporary, and thus one’s spiritual consciousness becomes overwhelmed by illusion.

Attacked incessantly by the soldiers of Candavega for one hundred years, the five-hooded serpent began to lose his strength, and King Puranjana and his friends and citizens became extremely anxious. One may struggle against time for perhaps one hundred years, but eventually one’s vitality weakens, and one’s bodily limbs (Puranjana’s citizens and friends) become feeble.

It is also significant to note that according to Vedic medical science, sexual activity saps one’s physical energy, By abstaining from sex, yogis can increase their lifespans dramatically and develop extraordinary siddhis, or physical powers, On the other hand, by frequent sexual activity one weakens the body and hastens the arrival of old age and death. A young man seeks to enjoy sex as much as possible, not knowing that the more one has sex in youth, the more severely the body is attacked by weakness, pain, and disease in old age.

Old age is figuratively known as Kalakanya, the daughter of time. So while time’s soldiers were attacking the city of King Puranjana, time’s daughter, old age, joined the attack. Old age begins her attack imperceptibly, so much so that one fails to realize that old age will eventually overcome him. One plans for the future, working hard to be comfortable and enjoy, but as one grows old one loses one’s vitality, and enjoyment slips away. Scientists conduct research to understand old age and overcome it, but are themselves overcome in the attempt.

Because a materialist lives for a dream of happiness and comfort in this world, it is better for him not to think about old age, disease, and death. But one who is serious about spiritual enlightenment should always be conscious of the miseries inherent in birth, death, disease, and old age. Understanding these miseries, an intelligent person avoids getting entangled in useless attempts to enjoy what appears to be happiness for the bodily senses, and instead tries to understand his spiritual identity and revive his spiritual life.

In attacking the city of King Puranjana, Kalakanya was guided by her brother, the King of the Yavanas, and accompanied by his brother Prajvara. The King of the Yavanas also had many soldiers, who combined in the attack. The King of the Yavanas is fear, and Prajvara is fever. The Yavana soldiers represent various diseases. These strong forces combined to attack the city.

Although the city of King Puranjana was full of paraphernalia for sense gratification, the serpent that protected the city was growing old and weak, and Kalakanya, with the help of the powerful soldiers, gradually attacked the city’s inhabitants and rendered them useless. The Yavana soldiers entered the gates of the city and gave severe trouble to all citizens. The city of the body has nine gates two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, the genitals, and the rectum. In old age, diseases appear at these gates of the body, the limbs lose their power to act, and the entire body begins to deteriorate.

Kalakanya embraced King Puranjana, and thus he gradually lost all his beauty. Having been too addicted to sex, he became very poor in intelligence and lost all his opulence. As the soldiers plundered his possessions, his ministers and family members and other citizens began opposing him, and his wife became cold and indifferent. Thus the King was full of anxiety, but he was helpless because he was overwhelmed by Kalakanya. By Kalakanya’s influence, the objects of King Puranjana’s enjoyment became stale. The King became confused and didn’t know what to do.

This is the situation of the living entity at the time of death, especially in modern civilization. As one grows older one’s body, mind, and intelligence grow weak, and one’s subordinates and family members turn against him. Even one’s own wife becomes unfaithful. Meanwhile, because one has had no training in spiritual understanding, one becomes bewildered. One has dedicated one’s entire life to the pursuit of material happiness, and then one’s very body, on which such happiness entirely depends, is overwhelmingly attacked, and one doesn’t know what to do. Not having any spiritual understanding, one becomes entirely miserable, overcome by the forces of time.

The soldiers overran the city, and although the King had no desire to leave, he was being circumstantially forced to. Prajvara set the city on fire, terrorizing the citizens, and the King was overwhelmed by grief.

While the city was being devastated, King Puranjana began to think of his family, his home, his household paraphernalia, and whatever wealth he had. He remained affectionate toward his wife and children and worried about them. How would they live in his absence? Who would maintain them? He recalled his wife’s affectionate dealings and lamented her fate.

While King Puranjana was lamenting in this way, the King of the Yavanas drew near to arrest him. The Yavanas bound King Puranjana like an animal to take him away and forced the serpent and the King’s followers to go with him. When the King and the serpent left the city, it immediately turned to dust.

When nature forces the living entity to leave the body, that body, deprived of its living force, again turns to inert matter. While friends and relatives carry the body in procession to the crematorium or the grave, the living entity himself has already left the body, taking his desires for enjoyment with him. (It is these materialistic desires that have been figuratively described as the King’s followers.)

While enjoying his youth, King Puranjana had killed many animals, and now these animals appeared again and began to pierce him with their horns. According to the laws of karma, one who kills animals for his own enjoyment (or who pays to have animals killed for the taste of meat) is subjected to consequent suffering after death.

King Puranjana had a powerful well-wisher and friend named Avijnata. Unfortunately, however, while the city was being devastated and King Puranjana was being dragged off, the King could not remember this intimate friend.

The Sanskrit word avijnata means “the unknown one.” Every living being has an intimate friend in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krsna. Unfortunately, however, a living being in materialistic life forgets his eternal relationship with Krsna and tries to be happy independently in the material world. Absorbed in trying to gratify his senses, he lives in a world of illusion, pursuing a happiness that doesn’t exist, and not understanding that time is gradually taking away his life. If a living entity revives his relationship with Krsna, he can transcend the influence of illusion, escape the sufferings of materialistic life, and at the time of death return home to the kingdom of God in the spiritual world. Unfortunately, however, one who has spent his whole life for sense gratification cannot remember Krsna, and at the time of death he is dragged off to the next body, to continue in an endless cycle of repeated birth and death.

Excerpts from a Travelling Preacher Dairy – Volume 5 – A Lesson from an Old Cleaning Man

Since the christmas marathon has started…

Indradyumna Swami: Then I visited the public restroom near the festival grounds, and I complimented the old cleaning woman. “This is the cleanest public toilet I have ever seen in Poland,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

She was struck. “I’ve been working here 10 years,” she said, “and you’re the first person to ever thank me. But I’m not surprised. You’re good people. I’ve watched your festival from a distance for years now. Everyone leaves your program smiling.”

“Can you come also?” I said.

She looked surprised. “You’re inviting me?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, “to dinner. I’ll come get you at 6 p.m. and we’ll have dinner together in our vegetarian restaurant.”

She looked down. “I’m an old woman,” she said. “No one has ever asked me. You know, I …”

She stopped. Her eyes had welled up with tears.

I took her hand. “I’ll be back at six,” I said.

But ! ! at 5:30 p.m., just an hour into the festival program, our big seven-ton generator broke down. The maintenance crew told me that it appeared to have been sabotaged. “It seems someone poured water into the fuel tank,” Niti-laksa das said.

Not everyone appreciates our programs. We have to be always on guard against the envious. So I was 20 minutes late for picking up the old woman. I went with Gaura Hari das and Nandini dasi.

She wasn’t there. An old man was sitting in her chair, bent over preparing a bucket of water to clean the toilets. “She went home,” he told us. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. I looked at the thin, gray-haired,poorly dressed old man, and I felt sorry for him.

“Do you know the old woman?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” he replied, “she’s my wife. We’ve worked together here for years. Can you imagine that?”

“No,” I said, “I can’t.”

I immediately regretted my answer. I was afraid I had insulted the old ! ! man, so I tried to smooth things over. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with working here,” I said. “I meant to say I …”

“Don’t worry,” said the old man. “I know it’s not the best work, and it doesn’t pay well, but we get by.”

He paused. “And do you know how?” he asked.

I was afraid I would put my foot in my mouth again, so I didn’t answer.

“By reading the Gita,” he said slowly.

Gaura Hari, Nandini, and I looked at each other in amazement.

“Yes,” he continued, “your Gita makes sense of everything. You can clearly understand the soul by reading the Gita. No other religion has such a concise explanation of the soul, reincarnation, and karma. If a man kills someone and then himself dies soon after, how will he be punished unless he’s born again? Reincarnation explains why some people are born into misery and others into good fortune.”

For a moment I thought I was dreaming. Was the old cleaning man really speaking Vedic philosophy?

“Take the material body,” he continued. “It is only dead matter. How can it be activated unless there is the presence of the soul? That’s why it’s wrong to kill animals. They also have souls. God created beings so they could live, not so they could be killed.”

I was struck by his clear logic.

“A man works all his life,” he continued, “and he gets a pension to live out his remaining days, but the cow gives milk all her life, and then people kill her. It’s wrong. And the whole world is suffering the reaction in the form of wars. Therefore God sends messengers at different times to enlighten us to these truths, but people just don’t listen. What can be done?”

Gaura Hari turned to me. “Sometimes I think you exaggerate in your diaries,” he said, “but I’ll never think that again.”

“You know,” I whispered to him, “that’s the same thing Dharmatma prabhu said after we survived a serious car accident near Jagannath Puri.”

I turned t! ! o the old man. “But there is an answer,” I said. “We can have festivals like these to help people understand.”

“Yes,” he said, “you’re right. Go on with your festivals. Let people hear the truth.”

I had to return to the festival to give my stage lecture. “One more thing,” I said. “Can you and your wife be my guests for dinner tomorrow evening at the last night of the festival?”

He looked surprised.

“Please,” I continued. “We’d be honored.”

“All right,” he said, “thank you.”

He stood up and picked up the bucket. “I didn’t know what real religion was until I read the Gita,” he said softly, half to himself, as he disappeared into the toilets.

Srila Prabhupada’s words came to my mind: “Therefore we stress so much in the book distribution. Somehow or other, if the book goes in one hand, he will be benefited … If he reads one sloka, his life will be successful…Therefore we are stressing so much, ‘Please distribute books, distribute bo o! ! ks, distribute books.’ ”

[Lecture, January 5, 1974, Los Angeles]
Excerpts from a Travelling Oreachers Dairy – Volume 5 – A Lesson from an Old Cleaning Man

By Mathuresha Dasa

A look at what the Srimad-Bhagavatam has to say about time, a concept that has challenged philosophers for centuries.

Time is a little difficult to define. Philosophers and theologians have tried for at least twenty-five centuries. Albert Einstein remarked, in the midst of slightly more esoteric statements regarding physics, that time was what his wristwatch measured. St. Augustine said that he knew what time was as long as no one asked him to explain it. And sounding a note of frustration in her book What, Then, Is Time (the title too is from St. Augustine), Eva Brann laments, “Why don’t I know what that is which I tell, save, spend, mark, waste, and even kill every day of my life with perfect aplomb?”

If we don’t know what time is, perhaps we can at least place it, or say where it is, and is not. In A Brief History of Time scientist Stephen Hawking proposes that “the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe,” thus placing time, say, alongside the universe, or inextricably involved with it. Hawking quotes (yet again) St. Augustine as saying that time is a property of the universe created by God, a property that did not exist before the creation.

The Vedic literature, which covers a wide range of topics, also deals with time. The Srimad-Bhagavatam, specifically, weighs in on the subject of the place and function of time in the creation of the universe. Portions of the Bhagavatam confirm and contradict the assertions of Hawking, Einstein, Augustine, and others, while providing unique perspectives.

The Bhagavatam teaches that Lord Krishna in his form as Vishnu is responsible for creation. Though Brahma and Siva also have roles to play, their power comes from Lord Vishnu. He exists alone before the creation, when nature is a subtle attribute of his person and time is in a dormant state as one of his powers. From his own attributes and powers, Lord Vishnu creates the universe, which is thus identical to him, while remaining unchanged and aloof himself. He maintains the creation effortlessly for an unimaginable length of time, then destroys it and absorbs it back into himself, then creates again.

This happens over and over, and after each destruction Vishnu is alone. Or nearly so. Vishnu has an eternal abode beyond the creation and destruction of matter where his perfect devotees live with him. Vishnu gives these devotees divine, affliction-free bodies like his own, bedecked with crowns and garlands. They reside with him forever, free from rebirth in a temporary universe. Lord Vishnu himself sometimes visits his creation, however, and some of his descents as avatars are described in the Bhagavatam. These avatars come to save the world, delivering the good and destroying the wicked while establishing dharma. Lord Vishnu descends this way of his own free will, unlike the array of subordinate individual souls, all under the sway of their karma, who enter the universe in the beginning of creation.

This cycle of creations is in line with the recurring theme of circular time described in the Vedic literature. The ages of Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali rotate like seasons. The individual living beings rotate through cycles of birth and death in different bodies. Creation and destruction of the universe also occur repeatedly.

Time as an Instrumental Cause

The Srimad-Bhagavatam recounts that as the creation of the universe gets underway, nature manifests from Vishnu in an inert and formless state. With no elements yet, no air, water, and so on, nothing is happening. Vishnu uses his time power to cause a “commotion” in nature and inseminates her with a multiplicity of individual living beings, or souls, as yet without bodies. This sets the creation on its way. The metaphor of a pregnancy is dramatic, with living beings now in the womb of nature, and with time, as an “impelling force,” clearly playing a central, if not precisely specified, role in the mix. Time is an original cause as an instrument of Vishnu, inert nature the original ingredient.

We living souls too are part of the time-activated mix. In his commentary on the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Vijayadvaja identifies time with “the fate of the individual souls necessary for the fruition of their karmas.” Expressing a similar notion, the Bhagavatam speaks of “time which awakens the fate of beings.” By their karma, or past activities, the living beings have a destiny to fulfill, with time, under the direction of Vishnu, awakening and impelling them to it. With this impelled life now in the womb, things begin to happen, and time remains to relentlessly direct each step of the creative process. Time is, in the words of one Bhagavatam commentator, “winkless.”

Portraying time as a power of God may not, as far as definitions go, satisfy a purely scientific mind. But so far, the Bhagavatam perspective does provide time, in response to the “where” question, with a theoretical location or origin beyond the creation, and in response to the “what” question, with a familiar status as one of God’s instruments. Neither of these responses wholly contradicts the statements of Augustine and Hawking that time has no existence or relevance before the creation. Since time in the Bhagavatam is dormant before the universe begins, and awakens more or less simultaneously with the first phase of nature, in one sense it is nonexistent and irrelevant prior to that. On the other hand, Bhagavatam time is not exactly one of the created elements, which have not appeared yet in nature’s womb. It is a property, as Augustine calls it, that precedes other properties.

A Vaishnava wall calendar, filled moment by moment with favorable and unfavorable times for all kinds of religious as well as ordinary activities, demonstrates that placing time beyond creation would not tell the whole story. Time is present in the cycle of ages, as well as in daily affairs. Time’s impelling nature may have its source beyond the universe, but manages to enter the days as well, somehow reconciling its precedence and its “pursuit” of the creation.

On the everyday level, the words “impelling” and “commotional” that the Bhagavatam uses for time in its primordial feature could just as well apply to the unsettling effects a person feels glancing at a calendar or clock. The same kind of impelling force is at work in the daily mix. When Eva Brann asks, “Why don’t I know what time is?” it is the contrast between this extremely familiar, ever-present thing that people daily save, waste, kill, mark, and spend, and the mysterious thing we can hardly know, that provokes her. The Bhagavatam make practical use of these everyday dynamics and images to construct a transcendent view of time. As time pursues the creation, the Bhagavatam, through an elaborate system called Sankhya, draws further on the everyday.

Pursuing the Creation: Sankhya Background

Nature, pregnant with living beings, and in flux under the force of time, next begins to differentiate into component elements. The Bhagavatam puts its description of this process under the heading of Sankhya cosmology. Sankhya carries the meaning of “number,” and the Sankhya system’s efforts to enumerate and categorize the elements of nature bear a loose resemblance to modern scientific efforts to assemble the periodic table. As the periodic table arranges the elements by their atomic numbers, which in turn correspond to their structures and properties, Sankhya describes the properties of its twenty-four elements, or categories of elements, and their relationship to each other. In A Survey of Hinduism, Klaus Klostermaier says of Sankhya, “The enumeration of the twenty-four basic elements is intended to provide a physically correct description of the universe and prepare the ground for the way back to its source.” Reflecting a related motivation in modern science, Hawking writes, “Our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

The Second and Third Cantos of the Bhagavatam present several descriptions of the Sankhya system, each differing slightly. The count of elements is sometimes twenty-four, sometimes twenty-five or twenty-seven, depending on how some elements are subdivided. My discussion here draws a general outline of the Sankhya system from various descriptions, including one from the Third Canto, Chapter 26, which lists time as an element. To preview, and to make a long story short, the elements appear in a particular sequence, evolving from one to the next, with one basic explanation for this evolution: the force of time and the force of destiny, or fate. Again time and destiny in the Bhagavatam, if not identical, are closely related.

Pursuing the Creation: Theory of Evolution

Beyond the fundamental similarities already noted, the Sankhya list of elements differs markedly from anything Einstein or Hawking would recognize. There are five “gross” elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. This is a lot like Aristotle’s list (earth, water, fire, air), and is as close as Sankhya gets to elements or categories resembling those in the periodic table. There are then five sense objects: sound, touch, form, taste, and odor. Then five sense organs: ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose. Then five working senses: arms, legs, speech organs, genitals, and anus. And three subtle elements: mind, intelligence, and ego. That makes four sets of five and one set of three. Add time for a grand total of twenty-four elements in the entire universe.

Time both moves the creation from step to step and is the context for the sequence of these steps. Of the twenty-four elements above, the Bhagavatam lists ego as the first to appear in the womb of nature. From ego, which “undergoes modifications” by the force of time, both mind and intelligence are produced. Time also modifies ego to produce sound, which appears along with space and the ear. Space evolves through time to produce another group of three: touch, air, and the skin. Air produces form, fire, and the eye. Fire evolves to taste, water, and the tongue. Water transforms to smell, earth, and the nose. Everything appears in automatic sequence by the power of time, under distant supervision by Vishnu. At this point in creation there appears to be only an inventory of elements with nothing fully assembled from them. The Bhagavatam does go on to describe assembly of species of life and planetary systems, all still under the control of time. The chosen topic here, though, is time’s place and the properties that make it elusive.

Properties of the Propertyless

From this summary version of elemental evolution, it is notable that each stage of three elements includes a corresponding sense. Sound and space appear with the ear, touch and air with the skin, form and fire (or light) with the eye. According to Sankhya analysis, as light illuminates form and is perceived by, and inseparable from, the eye, so space is connected to sound and the ear. Space “illuminates” the sound perceived by the ear. It carries sound the way light carries form. Similarly, water carries taste for the tongue, earth originates smell for the nose. Earth, in fact, as the last gross element to evolve, interacts with all five senses. You can smell it, taste it, see it, touch it, and—as it can produce sounds—hear it. Water, the element preceding earth, is odorless in its pure form, and so perceived by only four senses. And so on down to space in the first group of three along with sound, which is perceived by only one sense, the ear. All this is a very analytical, roundabout way of saying that time, though an element, has no corresponding sense or medium, nothing to directly illuminate or perceive it. This is another unique feature of time, one that hints at Eva Brann’s point as to why time is so hard know. Time is present with all the other elements, an essential part of the mix, but lacks a sensory access or affiliation.

A further unique aspect of the time of Sankhya, or perhaps a feature of its second, sense-less aspect, is that it has no special property. The Bhagavatam lists the other twenty-three elements along with their properties, many of which are strikingly obvious. Among water’s properties, for example, are to moisten, soften, remove heat and exhaustion, and slake thirst. The properties of touch are softness and hardness, cold and heat. Sound conveys meaning. And so on with all the elements. Even the mind (thinking, meditating, desiring), the intelligence (doubt, misapprehension, coming to conclusions), and the ego (pride, feeling of dominion) have their properties. Time does not have characteristics the way earth and the other elements do and is not interdependent as the other elements are. Many commentators hold forth on this point of properties, or propertylessness. Gosvami Giridhara-lala writes that time “is not characterized by any peculiarity, and hence it is beginningless and endless.” How being without peculiarity leads to endlessness is not explained, but another commentator echoes the same idea, saying that time “is not dependent on another cause; he exists of his own accord. Hence, he is endless.” The Bhagavatam itself says that time “is endless but puts and end to all. Time is beginningless but marks the beginning of all. He is immutable.” Beginninglessness and endlessness, as well as the ability to impose beginnings and ends on everything else, are features of time in the Bhagavatam that are evidently not considered to be properties comparable to the elemental properties.

Time’s Effects: Light-years and Timepieces

In its Bhagavatam version, time, being without properties, is perceived only by its effects. From the primordial commotion in nature to the appearance and evolution of the elements, time imposes beginnings and ends. Apart from the Bhagavatam, Brann notes that “When time is spoken of … in the world of nature … it is usually a word for something else—for motions of various kinds and for their measurements…. When time is named in natural science … what is meant is a standard motion or a probabilistic tendency.” The Bhagavatam time sets the world in motion and keeps it in motion while remaining invisible. Brann’s comments on time and motion could be taken as another way of saying that time is not only visible by its effects but measured by those effects as well. Her “standard motions” would then, in Sankhya language, be motions of the twenty-three elements, caused by time. And to measure these motions, other elements or objects have to be used. Einstein’s wristwatch, like most standard clocks, was a device calibrated to complete twenty-four cycles within one cycle of the sun. Less common timepieces, like carbon 14, also compare movements in one element with movements of the sun. Practically any element could serve as a clock if its patterns of motion or change are known. Einstein himself was partial to light-years. Old hourglasses used sand. Grand Canyon dating uses the erosive movement of water through stone. If time pursues the creation as the cause of motion or change, then in each of these cases it appears, using a Bhagavatam perspective, that time’s effect on one object is being compared to time’s effect on another, and the comparison is itself taken to be time or a measurement of time. The Bhagavatam proposes that the transformation, change, or movement of an object or element is the mark of time, not time itself.

The Bhagavatam is aware of this object-to-object conception of time and offers a range of measurement instruments, from the movement of atoms to the movement of the sun (which appears to be as central to Bhagavatam calculations as it is to ours). Time calculations range from millionths of a second up to the length of the creation, which is trillions of years.

Sports Section

In terms of definitions, time is elusive. Some of the Bhagavatam verses sound like definitions. For example, time is “God’s power which itself remains unmanifest, but occupies and encompasses [nature] and is competent to manage the creation, etc., of the universe.” Or, time is “the propelling force that awakens the fate of beings.” On closer inspection, though, what sound like definitions are not really definitive—not final, exhaustive, or quintessential. Instead of definitions, they are more like placements, or attributions for the cause of something else. “Time ‘occupies’ nature” is a general placement or location. “Time ‘awakens’ fate” is a causal attribution. Other would-be definitions seem to define roles without fully identifying the role-player. Time as “the power of motivation,” for example. Or time as “the instrumental cause” or as “a weapon in God’s hands.” These are all about what time allegedly does. To some extent the Bhagavatam can respond to Hawking’s statements about time’s relation to the universe, or to Einstein’s remark about his watch, but Brann’s simple question about what time is remains open.

To devotees of Krishna or Vishnu a standard definition may not matter. Time, which is beyond perception and empirical observation, is a power of Krishna, one of the features that makes God worshipable. Using time, Krishna as Vishnu creates without strain. Several places in the Bhagavatam describe Vishnu’s “sportive” (lilaya) approach to the creation of the universe. One verse says that Vishnu “sportively procreated himself in the form of the universe by using Time” as his instrument. Others state that “the sportive actions of the Lord … comprise within them the preservation, origination, and destruction of the universe” and that by devoted contemplation of his “sportive work” with time, human beings become disgusted with sense pleasures.

Though the Bhagavatam, as well as its commentators, do appear to devote considerable attention to the scientific (in the Sankhya sense) and philosophical aspects of time, time is also portrayed as a divine recreational tool with sportive functions beyond its mysterious and awe-inspiring, thunderboltlike facets. On one hand time “creates terror in beings and reduces their life,” “cuts asunder the hope of life in this world,” and disperses people as the wind disperses clouds. On the other hand time “has no power over the Almighty God,” whose sportive proclivities lead to the repeated creation of the universe.

The contrast between sport and terror is a little alarming, but may bear some similarities to the discussion, outside the Vedic tradition, regarding how God can be good if there is suffering in the creation. As a Christian may assert in the face of suffering that God is all good, so the Vaishnava concept of a playful Vishnu may hint at the same idea of a benign God. For Vaishnavas, Time in creation gives living beings the chance to pursue their goals both in life after life and in creation after creation. While there is fear and terror involved in this process, mention of eternal suffering or condemnation is absent. Everyone gets a sporting chance at improving their standing in life.

The idea of sport may also emphasize the independence of a Supreme Being. In any tradition, the appearance of God within the creation might raise a doubt concerning divine supremacy. One perspective derived from the Srimad-Bhagavatam is that whether God speaks from clouds, a mountain, or a burning bush, or whether he descends as an avatar, these are all sporting activities in the sense of freely chosen and undertaken for enjoyment without the prospect of negative consequences. God’s actions are fully voluntary. He never comes under the control of nature, which is controlled by his energy known as time.

Lecture on Krishna is the Essence that makes all taste accessible through water by HG Chaitanya Charan Prabhu on May 2015

(HG Chaitanya Charan Prabhu is a celibate spiritual teacher (brahmachari) at ISKCON, Pune. He has done his Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering from the Govt College of Engg, Pune. He is a member of ISKCON's topmost intellectual body, the Shastric Advisory Council, which offers scriptural advise to the GBC)

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Lecture on Haribol bolke svagat karne ki apramanic parampara evam narakiya jivan se bachao by HH Bhakti Vikas Swami on 12 Feb 2015 at Talashri Farm

(His Holiness Bhakti Vikasa Swami appeared in this world in 1957 in England. He joined the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in London in 1975 and was initiated in that year with the name Ilapati dasa by ISKCON’s founder-acarya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.)

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Lecture on Position of Srila Prabhupada in ISKCON by HH Bhakti Charu Swami on 27 Feb 2015 at ISKCON Pune

(Bhakti Charu Swami is from a Bengali family and spent most of his early childhood in urban Kolkata. He met with Srila Prabhupada at the end of 1976 after a long and intense search for a spiritual teacher. This initial meeting resulted in Bhakti Charu Swami being assigned to translate the books of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust into the Bengali language.)

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Lecture on How to Convert the Knowledge from Head to Heart by HH Bhakti Rasamrita Swami on 07 Feb 2015 at ISKCON Pune

(His Holiness Bhakti Rasamrita Swami completed his B.E. from M.S University Baroda, MBA from Bombay University & worked for some time in a multinational Bank. Inspired by the teachings of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder acharya of The International Society for Krishna Consciousness.)

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Lecture on Saffron Ceremony Address by Bhakti Rasamrita Swami at ISKCON Pune on 09 Feb 2015

(His Holiness Bhakti Rasamrita Swami completed his B.E. from M.S University Baroda, MBA from Bombay University & worked for some time in a multinational Bank.)

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Lecture on Cultivating Higher Taste in Krishna Consciousness by HH Bhakti Charu Swami on 28 Feb 2015 at ISKCON Pune

(Bhakti Charu Swami is from a Bengali family and spent most of his early childhood in urban Kolkata. He met with Srila Prabhupada at the end of 1976 after a long and intense search for a spiritual teacher. This initial meeting resulted in Bhakti Charu Swami being assigned to translate the books of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust into the Bengali language.)

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Lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam Class (03.31.01) by Vishwarup Prabhu on 03 Jan 2015 at ISKCON Pune

(Introduced to the movement of ISKCON in 1983 during medical college days. Started chanting 16 rounds in 1984. Acquired MBBS degree in 1985. Received first initiation in 1986 and Brahmin initiation in 1987.)

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Lecture on Sri Krishna Chaitanya Radha Krishna Naahi Anya by Lokanath Swami on 20 March 2015 at Solapur

(Born in Aravade, a small village Maharashtra, Indian, he went to Mumbai for studying. In the year 1971, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was touring India with his foreign disciples and had organized a pandal program in Mumbai.)

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Lecture on Sannyas Initation Lecture of Gaur Krishna Prabhu by Radha Govinda Swami on 14 May 2015 at Haridwar

(H.H. Radha Govinda Swami, a direct disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), lives in Vrindavan, India.)

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