Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy One afternoon in the 70s or 80s, I wandered from shelf to shelf in a bookstore in Paris’s Latin Quarter. The sound of the cars outside on the Boulevard Saint Michel drifted through the door, and the thin subtle smell of books lingered around the shelves. Soon I … Continue reading Eat Your Way to Wisdom →

Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy (photo: Jishnu Das) Paris. A beautiful summer morning. When? Maybe the late seventies. Can’t quite  remember. Yep. Old age has me in its grip, and yesterday’s names and dates fall through the cracks between its fingers. I stood on the corner, shielding my eyes from the sun when … Continue reading Summer and the Paris Police →

Sri Krishna Did you know that long ago, the king could assure that no child died before the parents? And the subjects expected that. I thought about this recently.  News reports and videos told of miraculous rescues after the earthquake that stretched through Turkey and Syria. It killed 40 thousand people. But some even survived … Continue reading It Doesn’t Have to Be →

Sri Krishna The news these days talks a lot about Prince Harry, the younger son of England’s King Charles III. The press follows him as he turns the spotlight on the embarrassing secrets of the royal family. His tell-all book, Spare, sold out on the first day. No surprise. Who wouldn’t want a drool-worthy, eyelid-raising … Continue reading The Trouble with Harry →

Sri Krishna Saw some articles about Jesus Christ lately on good old MSN News. But then some readers wrote in to make fun of the prophecy that the Messiah would be born of a woman. How else is anyone born? A few  wrote in and said, “Duh,” an expression of stupidity. (Picture a  bewildered man … Continue reading Born of a Woman →

Sri Krishna Would you ever imagine that a harmless article on MSN about  scientists climbing up and down the Grand Canyon would start a debate? But it did. Here’s what started it: At the bottom of the canyon, said the article, flows the Colorado River. But millions of years ago, the river flowed along the … Continue reading Who Carved the Grand Canyon? →

Sri Krishna A Sonnet What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage. (Bhagavad-Gita 2.69) 5,000 years ago, Krishna reigned as king in the city of Dvaraka on the west coast of India. Queen Rukmini was … Continue reading Day and Night →

Sri Krishna The other night, I wanted to forget about the horrors in the news—the debate over abortion, the war in Ukraine, the mass shooting in Thailand. “Let me  look at something else,” I thought. I got up and closed the window to keep out the chilly night air of autumn.   Then I got back … Continue reading The Cruel and the Compassionate →

Sri Krishna Note: I wrote this article for the yearly book of tributes to my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. But somehow the article was overlooked this year and didn't get published, so I am publishing it here. In the Sri Chaitanya Charitamrta we find the following passage: Things that are … Continue reading The Gift of Remembrance →

Sri Krishna Been thinking a lot about parrots lately. Why? Don’t know. But wait. I’m supposed to meditate on Krishna. Surely, nothing spiritual comes from thinking about parrots, right? Maybe I like their bright eyes and their raspy voices and the funny ways they combine words. But the material world has many amusing things. I’ve … Continue reading A Parrot’s-Eye View →