a.c. bhaktivedanta swami
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| Prabhupada Letters :: 1969 a.c. bhaktivedanta swami |
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12 May 2005 May 12, 1969 Columbus, Ohio Excerpt from Allen Ginsberg's introduction at Ohio State University Allen Ginsberg: I've known Swami Bhaktivedanta for about three years, since he settled in the Lower East Side in New York, which was my territory and my neighborhood... (applause) It seemed to me like a stroke of great intelligence for him to come, not as an uptown swami (laughter) but a real down-home street Swami, and make it on the street in the Lower East Side, and also opening a branch on Frederick Street right in the center of Haight-Ashbury. People in Haight-Ashbury several years ago zeroed in on the Frederick Street rugged. incensed, ashram, where chanting could be heard at dawn as they were coming down off an all night trip. I thought Swami Bhaktivedanta made a great move in coming to the Lower East Side and to Haight-Ashbury. And then, naturally, because people dig chanting, centers formed in other parts of the United States, so that there are small, street-level houses and storefront centers in Vancouver, L.A., Montreal, up in Buffalo... there's some Buffalo chanters here. There are Santa Fe chanters also. It's strange, it's so far-out an Indian form should take root in the United States a little more naturally than the more Protestant Vedanta Society or the extremely rigorous Zen groups. I think in large part it's due to the magnanimity, generosity, charm, wisdom, and cheerfulness of Swami Bhaktivedanta, his openness of heart, his willingness to come down on to the street, his sense of his own divinity and the divinity of those around him that has made it possible for the bhakti-yoga cult of India to be planted very firmly here in America so that now there are communes and ashrams. So I will leave the rest of the evening to Swami Bhaktivedanta who will explain his divine self. Then we will continue chanting. Swamiji. (applause) Prabhupada: om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya caksur-unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah My dear boys and girls, I thank you very much for your coming here and participating with this sankirtana function... letters | 01:02 | |
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