Friday, February 18, 2005
The Move to Paradise
Geraldine and I are back in Grand Rapids. After the first week in Hilo, the winds shifted, there was less vog and I started feeling better. I feel so much better in Hawaii than I do here. Hawaii is so nurturing to human life. The struggle for survival is less intense. Here it is cold and snowing. I don’t really want to go outside. I can’t really say I’m happy to be home, although my friend Phil who stayed here while we were away did a wonderful job of home repairs getting our house ready to put on the market. My heart is still in Hawaii and I can’t wait to get back there.
We’re buying a piece of land in the Black Sands Beach Community off Hwy 130, about three miles from the ocean at about 1,000 feet elevation. The air quality should be pretty good there most of the time. We’re on a cinder road about 100 yards off the paved road. There’s a goat herder down the block. We’re about seven miles from Pahoa in the district of Puna.
Land prices have been sky rocketing there. We were blessed to be able to find a good piece of property we could buy. It’s a little over 1/3 acre of ohia forest and thick fern like vines grown over lava. We had to go in with bolo knives and clear paths to be able to check out the lay of the land. I’ll do some hand clearing to get a better perspective, but then I’ll have to bring in a bulldozer to level the lava a bit. Then we’ll set up a yurt or two. It will be quite an adventure. We hope to return there permanently by the end of April. Our friend Phil and his son Nathan will go with us.
Our task now is to wrap up our affairs here and make the transition to Hawaii. Aloha!
Geraldine and I are back in Grand Rapids. After the first week in Hilo, the winds shifted, there was less vog and I started feeling better. I feel so much better in Hawaii than I do here. Hawaii is so nurturing to human life. The struggle for survival is less intense. Here it is cold and snowing. I don’t really want to go outside. I can’t really say I’m happy to be home, although my friend Phil who stayed here while we were away did a wonderful job of home repairs getting our house ready to put on the market. My heart is still in Hawaii and I can’t wait to get back there.
We’re buying a piece of land in the Black Sands Beach Community off Hwy 130, about three miles from the ocean at about 1,000 feet elevation. The air quality should be pretty good there most of the time. We’re on a cinder road about 100 yards off the paved road. There’s a goat herder down the block. We’re about seven miles from Pahoa in the district of Puna.
Land prices have been sky rocketing there. We were blessed to be able to find a good piece of property we could buy. It’s a little over 1/3 acre of ohia forest and thick fern like vines grown over lava. We had to go in with bolo knives and clear paths to be able to check out the lay of the land. I’ll do some hand clearing to get a better perspective, but then I’ll have to bring in a bulldozer to level the lava a bit. Then we’ll set up a yurt or two. It will be quite an adventure. We hope to return there permanently by the end of April. Our friend Phil and his son Nathan will go with us.
Our task now is to wrap up our affairs here and make the transition to Hawaii. Aloha!
Friday, February 11, 2005
Ever Unfolding Spiritual Truth and Practice
Here I am sitting on the lanai in Hilo once again. It’s a beautiful morning in paradise. I finished reading Hindu Encounter with Modernity and found it most affirming of the spiritual path I have been following these many years.
Shukavak N. Dasa concludes that “if Chaitanya Vaishnavism is going to have a lasting position and positive impact on the West, then it must intellectually move beyond the literalism by which it entered the West and begin to develop new forms of intellectual expressions and perspectives that are a part of the Western intellectual and academic traditions. Bhaktivinoda’s work provides the basis for such a development.”
This is a mission I have been working on for thirty years. I have shed most of the India cultural externals of Vaishnavism and maintained the spiritual essence. “Bhaktivinoda’s separation of the phenomenal and the transcendent, along with his implicit distinction between religious faith and belief” frees me to experiment with the task of creating a lifestyle where by Westerners can utilize the spiritual practices of Chaitanya Vaishnavism without having to become alienated from Western culture or pursue the life of a renunciate. “Bhaktivinoda recognized the need for spiritual and cultural adaptation.”
This need was driven home to me very clearly. There have been followers of Narayana Maharaja staying here at the inn for the past week. They came for a week-long festival with him. I have had some good conversations with one of them. At the urging of the devotees and my wife, I went to the final night of their meetings last night. While I was greeted warmly by devotees who know me from the past, I was not able to sit through much of the program. I just couldn’t stand to listen to the rhetoric or take part in the gushing adoration of “Gurudeva,” which seems very much like a personality cult to me. It doesn’t seem healthy for a bunch of Westerners to use a 83 year old Indian renunciate as their role model. Also having the guru more prominent than the deities doesn’t seem right. I guess part of it is sort of a protestant/Catholic split. I see a more humble, less elevated role for the guru. “Bhaktivinoda’s life…provides an excellent example of responsible worldly engagement and Vaisnava practice.”
“If Chaitanya Vaishnavism is to become indigenous to the modern and even Western world, then it must…adapt to conditions of modernity and to the West.” This may take some generations and much experimentation.
“Bhaktivinoda envisioned the modern religious thinker as a saragrahi, one able to transcend the limitations of his own religious culture and appreciate the spiritual essence of other religious traditions.” My long periods of immersion in Chaitanya Vaishnavism and Christianity as an ordained religious leader along with extensive study and practice of other traditions certainly qualifies me in this regard.
Bhaktivinoda “approached the transcendent through religious faith rooted in sahaja-samadi, innate religious intuition.” This is also my mode of operation. It allows freedom and creativity in the religious realm for new revelations of spiritual truth that are not bound by the past.
“Chaitanya Vaishnavism as it now exists in the West is largely disconnected from the tradition of raganuga-bhakti-sadhana, and for this reason is somewhat alienated from the esoteric depths and spiritual inspiration of its parent movement.” I was initiated into this path of spontaneous devotional service to Radha and Krishna by Bhaktivinoda’s son and disciple, Lalita Prasad Thakur. This frees me from being overly dependent on rules and regulations that seem to so preoccupy so many devotees while being able to experience the esoteric spiritual realms of devotion. Thus, I live a modern, Western life conducive to my spiritual growth. This is what I offer others as well.
Here I am sitting on the lanai in Hilo once again. It’s a beautiful morning in paradise. I finished reading Hindu Encounter with Modernity and found it most affirming of the spiritual path I have been following these many years.
Shukavak N. Dasa concludes that “if Chaitanya Vaishnavism is going to have a lasting position and positive impact on the West, then it must intellectually move beyond the literalism by which it entered the West and begin to develop new forms of intellectual expressions and perspectives that are a part of the Western intellectual and academic traditions. Bhaktivinoda’s work provides the basis for such a development.”
This is a mission I have been working on for thirty years. I have shed most of the India cultural externals of Vaishnavism and maintained the spiritual essence. “Bhaktivinoda’s separation of the phenomenal and the transcendent, along with his implicit distinction between religious faith and belief” frees me to experiment with the task of creating a lifestyle where by Westerners can utilize the spiritual practices of Chaitanya Vaishnavism without having to become alienated from Western culture or pursue the life of a renunciate. “Bhaktivinoda recognized the need for spiritual and cultural adaptation.”
This need was driven home to me very clearly. There have been followers of Narayana Maharaja staying here at the inn for the past week. They came for a week-long festival with him. I have had some good conversations with one of them. At the urging of the devotees and my wife, I went to the final night of their meetings last night. While I was greeted warmly by devotees who know me from the past, I was not able to sit through much of the program. I just couldn’t stand to listen to the rhetoric or take part in the gushing adoration of “Gurudeva,” which seems very much like a personality cult to me. It doesn’t seem healthy for a bunch of Westerners to use a 83 year old Indian renunciate as their role model. Also having the guru more prominent than the deities doesn’t seem right. I guess part of it is sort of a protestant/Catholic split. I see a more humble, less elevated role for the guru. “Bhaktivinoda’s life…provides an excellent example of responsible worldly engagement and Vaisnava practice.”
“If Chaitanya Vaishnavism is to become indigenous to the modern and even Western world, then it must…adapt to conditions of modernity and to the West.” This may take some generations and much experimentation.
“Bhaktivinoda envisioned the modern religious thinker as a saragrahi, one able to transcend the limitations of his own religious culture and appreciate the spiritual essence of other religious traditions.” My long periods of immersion in Chaitanya Vaishnavism and Christianity as an ordained religious leader along with extensive study and practice of other traditions certainly qualifies me in this regard.
Bhaktivinoda “approached the transcendent through religious faith rooted in sahaja-samadi, innate religious intuition.” This is also my mode of operation. It allows freedom and creativity in the religious realm for new revelations of spiritual truth that are not bound by the past.
“Chaitanya Vaishnavism as it now exists in the West is largely disconnected from the tradition of raganuga-bhakti-sadhana, and for this reason is somewhat alienated from the esoteric depths and spiritual inspiration of its parent movement.” I was initiated into this path of spontaneous devotional service to Radha and Krishna by Bhaktivinoda’s son and disciple, Lalita Prasad Thakur. This frees me from being overly dependent on rules and regulations that seem to so preoccupy so many devotees while being able to experience the esoteric spiritual realms of devotion. Thus, I live a modern, Western life conducive to my spiritual growth. This is what I offer others as well.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Aloha from Hawaii
Here I am sitting on the lanai of the Wild Ginger Inn in beautiful Hilo, Hawaii http://www.wildgingerinn.com/. We arrived Tuesday, February 15th, on a three week exploratory mission to see if we want to relocate here. It’s everything we hoped to find. It didn’t take Geraldine long to decide she wants to live here permanently, and of course it’s what I want to do. I feel like I am home again after an absence of 25 years which seems like forever.
The environment, culture, weather and people are conducive to peace, tranquility and spirituality. I contacted a couple of old friends and am making new ones also. We’ve been enjoying life in the laid back way that’s typical of the Big Island.
I’m reading a great book, Hindu Encounter with Modernity Click here, a critical, theological biography of my param-guru, Bhaktivinoda Thakur. It is very affirming of the path I have been following. He was very influenced by 19th century rationalism, Christianity and Unitarian thought. What it comes down to is that I am an essence seeker concerned with eternal truths and not externals. Bhaktivinoda presented the teachings of Sri Chaitanya in a new way to the intellectuals of his day, just as I am adapting those teachings to thoughtful Western people today.
Land is more expensive here than we thought, but it still seems like it might be doable. We found a couple of sub-divisions that look promising and have a realtor helping us. We visited a vacation rental place that has a couple of yurts like we are considering buying. They seem as comfortable, practical and nice as they do on the internet. Pacific Yurts-Original Modern Yurt Manufacturer We may look into other options also.
I’ve been having bad respiratory problems from the vog, volcanic gases in the air. They usually blow to the west and are not so much of a problem here, but the wind is from the south now. Even the trade winds are screwed up. I just heard that the volcano has been very active the past few days. Geraldine had stomach problems for a day, but we are still real glad to be here.
We took it slow the first few days, but now we’re being more intentional. We hope that we’ll be able to get quite a bit done in the next couple of weeks as we now actively look for land. It’s incredible how expensive falling down shacks are. I’ll keep you posted regarding our progress and the outcome of this process.
Aloha!
Here I am sitting on the lanai of the Wild Ginger Inn in beautiful Hilo, Hawaii http://www.wildgingerinn.com/. We arrived Tuesday, February 15th, on a three week exploratory mission to see if we want to relocate here. It’s everything we hoped to find. It didn’t take Geraldine long to decide she wants to live here permanently, and of course it’s what I want to do. I feel like I am home again after an absence of 25 years which seems like forever.
The environment, culture, weather and people are conducive to peace, tranquility and spirituality. I contacted a couple of old friends and am making new ones also. We’ve been enjoying life in the laid back way that’s typical of the Big Island.
I’m reading a great book, Hindu Encounter with Modernity Click here, a critical, theological biography of my param-guru, Bhaktivinoda Thakur. It is very affirming of the path I have been following. He was very influenced by 19th century rationalism, Christianity and Unitarian thought. What it comes down to is that I am an essence seeker concerned with eternal truths and not externals. Bhaktivinoda presented the teachings of Sri Chaitanya in a new way to the intellectuals of his day, just as I am adapting those teachings to thoughtful Western people today.
Land is more expensive here than we thought, but it still seems like it might be doable. We found a couple of sub-divisions that look promising and have a realtor helping us. We visited a vacation rental place that has a couple of yurts like we are considering buying. They seem as comfortable, practical and nice as they do on the internet. Pacific Yurts-Original Modern Yurt Manufacturer We may look into other options also.
I’ve been having bad respiratory problems from the vog, volcanic gases in the air. They usually blow to the west and are not so much of a problem here, but the wind is from the south now. Even the trade winds are screwed up. I just heard that the volcano has been very active the past few days. Geraldine had stomach problems for a day, but we are still real glad to be here.
We took it slow the first few days, but now we’re being more intentional. We hope that we’ll be able to get quite a bit done in the next couple of weeks as we now actively look for land. It’s incredible how expensive falling down shacks are. I’ll keep you posted regarding our progress and the outcome of this process.
Aloha!
