We Wish you a Hare Krishna, and a Jai Prabhupada!
BY: HRISHIKESH DASA
Dec 18, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, USA (SUN) — Regarding my dear godbrother Kurma dasa's recent post, "Wishing You A Hare Krishna," I wish to reply:
According to Srila Rupa Goswami, Lord Krishna possesses 64 transcendental qualities. For instance, "He is a genius" (No. 13), "He is artistic" (No. 14), and "He can attract all living entities all over the universes by playing on His flute" (No. 63). Krishna Himself tells us, "I am the sound in ether and ability in man." I don't mean to criticize, but I consider your praise of a misguided conditioned soul misplaced. However, I must admit that Krishna is also supremely independent, and if He chooses to empower a miserable conditioned soul to create beautiful works of art glorifying Him, I am truly amazed and humbled.
Kurma, you are correct in pointing out that there was some excellent preaching at New Vrindaban and other places around the world under Kirtanananda Swami's guidance. I was amiss in neglecting to mention in my article that not all our musical endeavors were failures. Granted, I felt that most of our Krishna-ized copies of Christian hymns and classical masterworks proved to have little lasting value; yet our original works were, in my opinion, superb. The songs of our acaryas, such as Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur's "Sri Sri Gurv-astaka," Jayadeva Goswami's "Sri Nrsimha Pranama," Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's "Siksastaka," and Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur's "Jaya Radha-Madhava" and "Gaura-arati," which were translated into beautiful rhymed and metered English verse by the master poets Hayagriva Swami, Umapati Swami, and True Peace, and set to original music by me, were, in my opinion, masterpieces.
Although I remember dozens of critical comments about our Krishna-ized hymns, I don't remember one negative remark about our beautiful and glorious temple service music. If Sun readers would like to hear an example of the music we performed at New Vrindaban during its "City of God" era, you can listen to an MP3 file of "Within Vrindaban's Woods and Groves" with English translation by Umapati Swami and musical orchestration by myself here. This recording is very much like the version performed by the musicians of the New Vrindaban Temple Orchestra and sung at nearly 3,000 New Vrindaban morning services from 1988 until 1994, except for the addition of the flute cadenza/introduction. For more info about "Within Vrindaban's Woods and Groves," see my website.
Sincerely your servant,
Hrishikesh dasa (Henry Doktorski)
